New York lost more than 100,000 homes due to the combination of smaller, more affordable apartments into larger, more luxurious homes

When rich people can’t buy new luxury housing, they buy up, and combine small apartments to create larger homes.

This is a negative sum game:  the number of housing units gained by high income households is fewer than the number

If you’re worried about gentrification and displacement, this is a vastly larger problem than new construction–which has been repeatedly shown to lower rents and create more housing opportunities for lower income households.

The obsession with fighting new development reflects a profound cognitive bias in thinking about housing:  we equate new units with unwanted change, while ignoring the effectively invisible destruction of existing units by upscaled combinations.

New York Lost 100,000 Homes to Consolidation

A new study reported in The City finds that over the past several decades, the number of homes in New York has declined by more than 100,000 as smaller apartments have been consolidated into larger homes.  The data come from a thesis prepared by Adam Brodheim of Columbia University.

The effect of unit consolidation has been to partially or totally offset the positive supply effects of new construction.  In some neighborhoods, the number of housing units lost to these combinations dwarfs new construction.  In New York, the largest number of units have been lost in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Combinations and Gentrification

The demand for consolidation comes from higher income families who want to live in the city but can’t find units that are large enough to accommodate their needs and income.  In a very real sense, the failure to build enough new luxury housing means these higher income households don’t go away, they outbid multiple middle and lower income households for these units.

Do each of these brownstones have four apartments, or only one? (Flickr: Sharona Gott)

Building more high end housing keeps those with high incomes from moving down market and out-bidding those with less income for the existing housing stock, we still hear this argument. For remaining doubters, have a look at Noah Smith’s thought experiment, asking what we think would happen to housing prices  if we suddenly demolished 10,000 units of expensive housing.

This study confirms exactly the Smith’s thought-experiment posed by economist Noah Smith some years ago: The households don’t disappear; they outbid people with less income for the housing units that remain.  Limiting supply doesn’t reduce demand, especially by high income households.  The demand is there whether you supply new larger, luxury units or not, and with no other place to go, it spills over into other parts of the housing market, to the detriment of everyone else lower on the ladder.

And in New York, with these high end-remodeling combinations, the result is actually a negative sum game.  High income households don’t simply displace lower income households one for one:  each new combined unit to house one higher income household displaces multiple households with lower incomes.

If you are concerned about gentrification, you ought to be deeply concerned about these conversions, rather than new construction.  While the knee jerk solution might be to try and block combinations, that misses the fact that the underlying problem is that there are simply too few units and too little space compared to the number of people who want to live in cities.

(We see the same thing happening in Silicon Valley, where an otherwise unremarkable ranch house from the 1950s commands a multi-million dollar price tag–because its so difficult to build new housing there).

An invisible process produces cognitive bias

The process is largely invisible:  Unlike new buildings, which are obvious, public and highly regulated, the combinationof apartments occurs out of public sight, behind closed doors and with minimal regulatory scrutiny:

. . . three previously multi-unit brownstones have been converted into single-family homes over the years — but you’d never know it unless you spotted a construction permit, or noticed multiple buzzers replaced by one doorbell, he said.

“From the perspective of most people on the street, they’re not noticing that seven fewer families are able to live on this block … and this happens all the time,” Brodheim told THE CITY. “Unlike new buildings, which have to go through this huge gauntlet of, often, public opposition to create new units, here you’re able to get rid of apartments without anyone noticing.”

As we’ve noted in our analysis of gentrification, there’s a profound cognitive bias in understanding neighborhood change.  Our research shows that there’s been a dramatic increase in concentrated poverty in US cities, and that poor neighborhoods tend to hemorrhage population.  Fewer than one in twenty high poverty US neighborhoods gentrified over four decades; far more commonly high poverty neighborhoods spread and lost population.  But  these processes occur slowly, over decades, and are imperceptible or simply unperceived by most residents.  In contrast, new construction is obvious, and people understandably associate it with neighborhood change.  Our attention is naturally drawn to those places where an urban transformation is happening the most rapidly; new investment and construction are much more noticeable than the imperceptible processes of neighborhood decline.

Adam Brodheim, 2023. “Bigger Houses, Fewer Homes: Dwelling Unit Consolidation in New York City.” M.S. Historic Preservation Thesis, Columbia University.
https://www.thecity.nyc/housing/2023/8/24/23843686/100k-apartments-lost-to-house-conversions?s=09

Portland Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) does nothing to prioritize projects and expenditures that reduce greenhouse gases

Metro falsely asserts that because its overall plan will be on a path to reduce GHGs (it wont), it can simply ignore the greenhouse gas emissions of spending billions to widen freeways

The RTP’s climate policies don’t apply to individual project selection;  projects are prioritized on whether they reduce vehicle delay—a failed metric it uses to rationalize capacity expansions that simply induce additional travel and pollution

The RTP environmental analysis falsely assume that ODOT will impose aggressive state charges on car travel, including carbon taxes, a mileage fee and congestion fees than have not been implemented, and may never be, to reduce VMT

The RTP’s traffic modeling fails to incorporate the effect of expected pricing on the need for additional capacity.  Modeling done by ODOT shows that pricing would eliminate the need for capacity expansion, saving billions, and reducing greenhouse gases.

Transportation is the largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the Portland Area;  every one of the state, regional and local plans to reduce transportation greenhouse gases is clearly failing.  The proposed 2023 Regional Transportation Plan could be a vital tool for prioritizing actions to reduce transportation GHGs.  It isn’t.  It’s a vehicle for justifying a multi-billion dollar wish list of road projects, and pretending that someone else will solve the climate problem.  The plan does nothing to use climate criteria to prioritize spending decisions, and instead, gives a pass to expensive road expansion projects that will encourage more driving and higher levels of greenhouse gases.

State and regional transportation plans fail to acknowledge the grim reality of increase transportation greenhouse gases (GHGs).  As we’ve documented at City Observatory Metro (and others) have concealed the fact that transportation emissions are increasing by ignoring actual inventory data, and instead, reporting fictional results obtained from their own models, that ignore actual emissions information, and instead make rosy and unsupportable assumptions about future technology, market trends and policy.  In essence, these plans pretend that transportation GHGs are already decreasing, and will decrease even more dramatically in the future.

RTP Priority:  Billions for highway construction and expansion

The Regional Transportation Plan is an official, federally required planning document that spells out how the region will invest in transportation over the next two decades.  This is exactly the time when scientists tell us we must take decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  But the largest projects—and the bulk of the expenditures—in the RTP are highway construction and widening that will facilitate more car travel, and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

The RTP document tries to downplay the emphasis on road building with a misleading graphic that shows dots for each project.  The massive Interstate Bridge Replacement is one tiny dot, the huge Rose Quarter widening one tiny dot, the I-205 Abernethy one tiny dot—even though these represent more than $10 billion in capital spending.

The fine print text acknowledges that this is mostly a few big highway projects, but even then substantially understates their true costs.  The Executive Summary fine print says:

. . . the “big three” projects—the I-5 Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, the I-5 Rose Quarter Project, and the I-205 Widening and Toll Project—each cost more than $1B.

In fact, the estimated price tag for the IBR is as much as $7.5 billion, the Rose Quarter project has ballooned to $1.9 billion.  .  The RTP neither reflects the current cost estimates of these projects, nor the likely costs of further cost overruns, which are endemic on major ODOT highway projects.

The RTP spends bulk of its capital on projects that add capacity to freeways—even though a decade old Metro climate plan conceded that these have “low”impact on reducing GHGs.  And in fact, all of the available science on induced demand shows that added capacity increases driving, and increases emissions.

How can Metro square spending billions on highway widening with the climate crisis?  As we pointed out earlier, Metro has ignore the actual inventory data showing increasing transportation greenhouse gas emissions, and substituted its own demonstrably wrong emission modeling to assert we’re on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Then the policies in the RTP use this umbrella assertion that “this is fine” to simply ignore the greenhouse gas emission effects of individual projects.  The result is a “drive and pollute as usual” approach to  the region’s transportation spending plans and policies.  The bureaucrats assert that because their models show that the overall plan will (based on wildly wrong assumptions) make progress toward the 2050 state goal, that there is essentially no need to rank or prioritize investments based on whether they increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions.  Meeting the greenhouse gas reduction goal is a criteria applied only (and falsely) to the overall regional plan, and not to any specific projects.

This umbrella claim that the RTP as a whole RTP meets the state climate goals, is spelled out in policy:

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT)/capita will be a controlling measure in both system planning and plan amendments to ensure that the planned transportation system and changes to the system support reduced VMT/capita by providing travel options that are complete and connected and that changes to land use reduce the overall need to drive from a regional perspective and are supportive of travel options.

• For system planning, the final planned system must support OAR 660 Division 44 (Metropolitan Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Reduction rule) and OAR 660 Division 12 VMT reduction targets.

• For plan amendments, VMT/capita will be used to determine whether the proposed plan amendment has a significant impact on regional VMT/capita that needs to be mitigated or not.

System completeness and travel speed reliability on throughways are secondary measures that will be used to identify needs and inform the development of the planned system.

“Controlling measure” sounds imposing, but this is deceptive.  In effect,  the VMT reduction goals apply only to the overall plan, and to amendments to the plan.  Projects included in the plan are given a pass on whether they increase or decrease VMT (and greenhouse gas emissions).  While VMT is labeled as “a controlling measure” and travel speed is described as a “secondary measure,” the language of the RTP conceals the fact that the secondary measure really determines the priority for spending.  The RTP prioritizes project spending based on travel speed, not reducing VMT or greenhouse gases.

The RTP doesn’t prioritize spending money on projects that reduce VMT.  The RTP contains only  a requirement that plan amendments that increase per capita VMT have to be “mitigated.”  That’s problematic for a couple of reasons.  First:  several huge freeway widening projects are included in the plan itself, and aren’t amendments, so they won’t be mitigated at all.  Second, Metro claims that its models can’t actually detect whether projects—even very large ones, like the IBR or Rose Quarter Freeway widening—increase VMT.  Third, ODOT (falsely) claims that highway expansions  don’t increase VMT.  Metro has not adopted any  objective third party method for assessing per capita VMT effects of projects—like the CalTrans adopted induced travel calculator.  ODOT’s own technical manual simply denies the existence of induced travel and bars its inclusion in ODOT modeling).  Finally, the policy doesn’t limit or ban plan amendments that increase per capita GHG emissions—it only requires that increases be mitigated.  (The RTP fails to say where the mitigation will come from, especially if the region is actively implementing other ways to reduce VMT).

RTP travel speed standards prioritize projects to increase capacity

What the RTP does do, however, is create a rigid standard prioritizing travel speeds on throughways and arterials. Throughways need to provide no less than 35MPH at least 20 hours per day; other “signaled” arterials must provide at least 20MPH no fewer than 20 hours per day. These speed standards do apply to the prioritization of project spending.  While they are labeled as “secondary” these are in fact the “controlling” metrics for project selection and prioritization.

Again, in contrast, the climate standards, calling for a reduction in VMT  effectively only apply to the overall plan, not segments thereof, and only have to “support” possible VMT reductions, not actually result in them.

In sum, individual investments, even ones as large as the multi-billion dollar widenings of I-5 at the Rose Quarter and the Interstate Bridge are effectively exempt from any climate analysis.  Climate simply doesn’t matter for setting regional spending priorities.  The only thing that matters under the terms of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) is whether investments speed traffic.  The RTP sets a goal of making sure that area “throughways” travel at no less than 35 MPH 20 hours per day, and that area arterials travel at no less than 20 miles per hour for 20 hours per day.

Projects that speed traffic on highways have been proven to increase travel—a widely documented scientific finding called “induced travel” which means that wider roadways generate more vehicle miles of travel and more pollution.

The Metro RTP criteria give no additional weight or priority to projects that reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions.  Speed, not greenhouse gases or safety, drives the distribution of resources under the plan.

RTP climate compliance depends on imaginary, unadopted policies

A key climate question is whether the region will reduce VMT.  The RTP contains little, if any information, on which of its investments will reduce VMT.  It makes a sweeping and general claim that providing transit (and other alternatives) “create the conditions” that could reduce VMT; but lower VMT has to come from reflecting back to drivers the true costs associated with their decisions.  When it comes to such actual financial incentives, the bottom line is that Metro assumes that as yet unadopted, and highly speculative state policies, not anything in the RTP, will reduce VMT.

The RTP counts on reduced driving as a result of ODOT and other state policies to make driving more expensive.  There’s an old economist joke, about how to solve the problem of opening canned food when one has no means to do so; the economists waves the problem away, saying “Assume we have a can-opener.”  Metro assumes that ODOT will produce a can opener in the form of a plethora of new fees on driving, including an unspecified carbon tax, a per mile fee of 6 to 10 cents per mile on all driving in the state, as well as a 9 to 17 cent per mile congestion fee for using throughways (limited access roads in Portland), plus tolls to finance the Interstate Bridge and I-205 bridges.  The RTP climate analysis assumes that the state will enact all these fees, and this will reduce driving and carbon emissions.

In effect, the RTP is overwhelmingly dependent on the purely hypothetical actions of others to achieve climate goals:  It depends on state and federal fuel economy, vehicle emissions and fuel policies to reduce emissions per mile driven, and depends on state imposed taxes and fees to reduce vehicle miles traveled.

If the state doesn’t take these actions—and while they would be smart policy, there is no guarantee it will do so—then the hoped for (and modeled) changes in VMT and greenhouses gases simply won’t occur.  But there’s nothing in the plan to pick up the slack, and meanwhile these dubious assumptions will have rationalized spending billions of dollars of irreplaceable public capital on projects that increase driving (just as the climate crisis grows worse).

Failure to include pricing in transportation demand modeling and project evaluation

There’s a profound contradiction in the RTP’s treatment of road pricing.  When it comes to climate strategy, and funding adequacy, the RTP assumes that pricing is a done deal.  When it comes to modeling traffic demand, and especially the need for added capacity, it simply ignores the effects of pricing.

The work that has been done on pricing shows that if the state implements any of the proposed pricing mechanisms (Regional Mobility Pricing or RMPP; tolling on the I-205 Abernethy Bridge or the Interstate Bridge), the region will not need to build any new capacity.  A particularly stark analysis was prepared by ODOT consultants showing that highway pricing (the RMPP) alone—and leaving the Rose Quarter in its current configuration—would be more effective in reducing traffic delays, congestion, VMT and greenhouse gases than spending $1.9 billion widening this 1.5 mile stretch of roadway.  Yet Metro has refused to examine the greenhouse gas implications of these project alternatives, and won’t even apply such tools to project evaluation.

The strategy assumes that the state and region institute a stringent per mile pricing of freeways and arterials for purposes of estimating climate compliance, but the transportation modeling used to justify new project and capacity assumes that the roads are unpriced.

New revenue mechanisms in the STS include a road user charge that levies per-mile fees on drivers, carbon taxes, and additional road pricing beyond what is currently included in the 2023 RTP. These changes are not reflected in the RTP because they are not yet adopted in state policies or regulations, but the climate analysis for the RTP is allowed to include them because these state-led pricing actions are identified in STS and were assumed when the state set the region’s climate targets.
(Emphasis added).

The net effect of including the effects of as-yet-unadopted pricing for climate analysis, but not including it in travel demand analysis for capacity expansion projects, is to create a falsely optimistic picture of climate progress, and a falsely exaggerated picture of the need for additional capacity.

The Cop-Out:  We’re following state rules

Metro’s RTP asserts that “this is fine” for climate because they are following LCDC rules for their land use plan which are designed to address climate change.  LCDC has adopted a “Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities” (CFEC) rule that requires Metro to plan to reduce VMT.  The key problem is that the CFEC rule is based on the same flawed ODOT analysis as the Metro RTP:  making wildly unsupportable assumptions about the rapid adoption of clean vehicles.

Complying with the LCDC rule doesn’t put the region on track to reduce driving or transportation greenhouse gases, and doesn’t demonstrate how we will comply with the legally adopted state goal to reduce greenhouse gases to 25 percent of 1990 levels by 2050:

468A.205 Policy; greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. (1) The Legislative Assembly declares that it is the policy of this state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon pursuant to the following greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals:

     . . . (c) By 2050, achieve greenhouse gas levels that are at least 75 percent below 1990 levels.

Instead, Metro asserts that its RTP conforms to LCDC regulations governing land use plans.  The RTP makes no mention of ORS 468A.205.

Both the LCDC rules and the Metro RTP are based on badly flawed modeling of greenhouse gas levels.  The modeling makes a series of incorrect and unsupported assumptions about vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions reduction technology.  As a result, the modeling wildly understates the actual level of greenhouse gases produced by transportation, and wildly overstates the current and future reductions in greenhouse gases due to greater efficiency.

The 2022 LCDC “Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities” Rule relies on 2016 modeling prepared by former ODOT employee Brian Gregor.  These figures have not been updated, despite a legal requirement that they do so.

Metro claims to have done additional modeling with its “Vision Eval” model.  That modeling assumes that average vehicle ages fall to less than seven years, and that passenger cars make up more than 70 percent of household vehicles.  As we’ve demonstrated both these assumptions are not only wrong, market trends are moving in the opposite direction of Metro’s forecast:  cars are getting older and larger, not smaller and newer (and cleaner) as assumed.

Metro is counting on improved vehicles and fuels for more than 90 percent of greenhouse gas emission reductions.  Appendix J of the RTP projects that the plan (which relies on pricing which is still speculative) will result in an 88 percent reduction in transportation GHG, with 81 percent reduction from fuels and vehicles, and 7 percent reduction from reduced VMT.  That means that 92 percent (81/88) of the reduction in greenhouse gases comes from policies other than those in Metro’s RTP.

These heroic and wildly exaggerated assumptions about improved vehicle fuel efficiency enable Metro to plan for only an extremely modest reduction in VMT.

The RTP is climate denial

Metro leaders talk a good game about climate.  They point to their nearly ten-year old Climate Smart Strategy.  They acknowledge the reality of climate change, and the general need to reduce greenhouse gases.  They’ve listened to national experts who point out the problems with traditional planning approaches.

In spite of all this, the RTP remains what it has always been, a highway-centric spending wish list.  All this version does, is add on an additional layer of rationalization to insist that the region continue building roads on the elaborate and plainly false assumptions that cars will become vastly cleaner, and ODOT will aggressively price roads and carbon.  The plan is still replete with billions of dollars of spending to increase highway capacity, including the $7.5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement Project and the Rose Quarter.  These highway expansions facilitate continued car dependence and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Like Metro’s so-called Climate Smart Strategy, the climate provisions in the RTP are a at best an afterthought, and a performative fig-leaf, meant to provide rhetorical cover to a vast investment strategy that is fundamentally at odds with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Metro has promised to update its “Climate Smart Strategy” from 2014, but in fact it hasn’t.

Clicking on the “climate smart strategy” link and it takes you to a nine-year old document that hasn’t been updated.  This is what still appears on the Metro website.

Metro’s real climate strategy is “Don’t look up.”

Metro’s RTP needs to examine the travel impacts of tolling and new capacity expansion

Metro claims that its travel modeling can’t really discern the effects of tolling on regional travel patterns, and instead of specific quantitative outputs it simply offers a series of descriptive, generalized statements—”qualitative findings”— about the impact of tolling.

The large-scale, aggregate nature of Metro’s travel model makes it challenging to detail the regional impacts of any single project, even one as potentially significant as tolling. Instead of attempting to isolate the impacts of tolling, Metro staff identified several qualitative findings about tolling’s impacts based on the modeling results for the constrained RTP scenario and on Metro’s experience supporting tolling analyses in the region

System Analysis Public Review Draft 2023 Regional Transportation Plan | July 10, 2023(Chapter 7, p. 7-7-28).

It is, in fact, possible and proven to estimate the effect of new highway capacity on travel patterns and greenhouse gas emission.sIn contrast, California and CalTrans have developed and created tools specifically to analyze the carbon impacts of individual projects:  The Induced Travel Calculator.  This calculator has been adapted to Oregon by the Rocky Mountain Institute.  Metro could use this calculator to estimate the carbon associated with highway expansion projects.  But ODOT, in a bit of science-denial, the Oregon Department of Transportation has specifically banned the used of induced travel analysis in state highway modeling.

Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan rationalizes spending billions on freeway expansion by publishing false estimates and projections of greenhouse gas emissions

Transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gases in Portland.  For nearly a decade, our regional government, Metro, has said it is planning to meet a state law calling for  reducing greenhouse gas emissions 75 percent by 2050.

But the latest Metro Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) has simply stopped counting actual greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

Inventories compiled by the state, the city of Portland and the federal government all show the region’s transportation emissions are going up, not down as called for in our plan.

In place of actual data, Metro and other agencies are substituting fictitious estimates from models; these estimates incorrectly assume that we are driving smaller cars and fewer trucks and SUVs, and rapidly replacing older cars.  None of those assumptions are true.

As a result greenhouse gases are going up; our plans are failing, and Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan, the blueprint for spending billions over the next several decades will only make our climate problems worse

This may be our last, best chance to do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the largest and fastest growing source of such pollution in the state and region. Metro’s federally required Regional Transportation Plan is supposed to reconcile our transportation investments with our social and environmental goals.  Instead the draft RTP simply lies to the public about worsening greenhouse gas emissions, the failure of current efforts, and the inadequate and counterproductive aspects of the proposed RTP.

Portland and Oregon leaders proudly celebrate our acknowledgement of the gravity of the climate crisis and our oft-professed commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  For the mass and social media, there’s soaring rhetoric.

In the bureaucratic backrooms though, it’s pollution as usual.  No where is this more clear than when it comes to roadbuilding.  Oregon is embarking on the largest and most expensive highway expansion effort in 50 years, proposing to spend more than $10 billion in the Portland area on highways. All of those billion dollar plus highway expansion projects are contained in Metro’s proposed 2023 Regional Transportation Plan.

This, in spite of the fact that transportation is the largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gases are higher now that they were in 1990, and every one of the state, regional and local plans to reduce transportation greenhouse gases is clearly failing.

State and regional transportation plans fail to acknowledge the grim reality of increase transportation greenhouse gases (GHGs).  Instead, they conceal the fact that our transportation emissions are increasing by ignoring actual inventory data, and instead, reporting fictional results obtained from their own models, and instead make rosy and unsupportable assumptions about future technology, market trends and policy.  In essence, these plans pretend that transportation GHGs are already decreasing, and will decrease even more dramatically in the future.

By steadfastly ignoring increasing emissions, Metro and the State of Oregon have simply ignored pledges made in their original climate planning to regularly measure progress, not in terms of checklists, but in terms of actual, measured reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Transportation and Climate:  Plans ignore reality

It’s been a decade since Metro’s first Climate Smart Plan in 2014, which promised to put the region on track to meet state greenhouse gas reduction goal—reducing emissions 75 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

Since then, the urgency the of the climate crisis has grown manifestly worse, locally epitomized by weeks of suffocating smoke from climate-caused fires; record 116 degree heat that killed dozens (and likely more), and steadily warming oceans and melting glaciers and icecaps.

The clock is ticking; we’ve used up a quarter of the time we have to achieve our 2050 goal.  Now would be a good time to consider whether what we’re doing is working.  This question is especially salient given Metro’s consideration of the 2023 Regional Transportation Plan, which will spell out the course of transportation investment for the next five years (and following decades).  Since transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the city, region and state, this transportation will be crucial to achieving our goals.

All evidence shows that Metro’s “Climate Smart Plan” has failed completely to reduce greenhouse gases.  Every independent inventory of transportation GHGs shows that emissions have increased since the plan was adopted.  The region already emits more transportation GHGs than it did in 1990; and the authoritative DARTE database found that regional transportation emissions are up 20 percent in the past five years.  And bafflingly, Metro’s RTP climate monitoring doesn’t even bother to report on emission trends.

Instead, the plan relies on its own optimistic modeling of future trends.  The problem here is that  the plan itself is founded on wildly unrealistic and already disproven assumptions about the rapid adoption of cleaner vehicles.  State and local transportation officials confidently predicted a decade ago that we’d rapidly replace older, larger, dirtier vehicles with cleaner newer ones.  In fact, the opposite has happened:  The average age of vehicles in Oregon is now up to 14 years, and heavier, dirtier trucks and SUVs make up nearly 80 percent of new vehicles old.  We’re no where near on track to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals.

But the plan assumes, falsely, that the average age of cars is about six years, and that two-thirds of vehicles are smaller, cleaner passenger cars.  It uses these assumptions to predict that greenhouse gas emissions will fall rapidly.  And even though reality has shown these assumptions to be wrong, modelers have doubled down on them, and now assume, for example, that cars will be replaced even faster than they thought a decade ago, even as the fleet gets older and older.

We’re failing to achieve our goal:  Transportation GHGs are increasing

Transportation emissions are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Portland and in Oregon.  Transportation emissions account for 41 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Multnomah County, and 32 percent of emissions statewide.

It’s good to have ambitious plans.  But ultimately, those plans have to work in the real world.  Locally, we have three different real world estimates of transportation greenhouse gases:  The federally sponsored DARTE database, a geographically detailed nationwide estimate of greenhouse gases broken down to 1 kilometer squares cover the entire nation, the Department of Environmental Quality’s annual statewide estimates of Oregon greenhouse gas emissions by source (residential, commercial, industrial, electricity generation and transportation), and Multnomah County’s annual accounting of local greenhouse gas emissions.  Every one of these estimates shows we are failing to reduce transportation greenhouse gases.

When it comes to transportation, we’re not making any progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions; in fact, greenhouse gas emissions are higher than in 1990 in Multnomah County (up 3 percent), the Portland Metro area (up 27 percent) and statewide (19 percent).  We’re going in the wrong direction.

 State, regional and local climate plans are failing

And since we adopted city, regional and state plans to reduce transportation emissions (the Portland Climate Action Plan in 2015, the Metro Climate Smart Strategy in 2014, and the State Transportation Strategy in 2013), transportation emissions have increased, not decreased.  From 2013 (the year before these climate plans took effect through 2019 (the last full year prior to the pandemic), greenhouse gas emissions form transportation have risen.

Oregon transportation GHG emissions are up 2.7 percent per year since 2013, Portland regional emissions are up 4.9 percent per year  and Multnomah County emissions are up 1.4 percent year.  Transportation emissions are going up when our plans call for them to be going down.  The result is a yawning and unacknowledged gap between our plans and reality.  The DARTE data show the region going rapidly in the wrong direction.

All of the available independent inventory data for the state, city and region make it clear that our transportation emission reduction plans are failing in monumental fashion to achieve their goals.

Climate plans haven’t been adjusted to reflect reality

Increased transportation greenhouse gases should be triggering stronger efforts to fight climate change. Metro committed to monitor the progress and implementation of its Climate Smart Strategy, and to take additional measures as needed.  This commitment appears in the Climate Smart Plan and is reiterated in the latest draft of the 2023 Regional Transportation Plan.  (RTP 2023 Draft, Appendix J, page 21)

Metro’s RTP fails to report increasing transportation greenhouse gas emissions

Despite these commitments, Metro’s RTP does not accurately report on regional greenhouse gas emission trends. It does not acknowledge that, contrary to the 2014 CSS and the 2018 RTP, transportation greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, not decreasing. The 2023 RTP contains no graph or time series information on transportation greenhouse gases in Portland; in contains only a single reference to the per capita level of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 and 2045; both of these figures are obtained from Metro’s model, not from actual inventories of greenhouse gas emissions prepared by independent agencies.

We are “deviating significantly” from our earlier projections and plans, but we haven’t acknowledged it, and therefore, aren’t proposing to change our plan.

The RTP substitutes inaccurate models for actual data

ODOT, Metro, and LCDC are substituting flawed and biased models for actual data about carbon emissions.  Transportation greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, yet all these agencies pretend, based on inaccurate models, that they’re making progress toward reducing greenhouse gases.  The actual data show that vehicles on the road today (and tomorrow) are vastly older and dirtier than assumed in the models these agencies use to falsely portray their climate progress.

Both the LCDC rules and the Metro RTP are based on flawed modeling of greenhouse gas levels.  The modeling makes a series of incorrect and unsupported assumptions about vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions reduction technology.  As a result, the modeling significantly understates the actual level of greenhouse gases produced by transportation, and overstates the current and future reductions in greenhouse gases due to greater efficiency.

The 2022 LCDC “Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities” Rule relies on 2016 modeling prepared by former ODOT employee Brian Gregor.  These figures have not been updated, despite a legal requirement that they do so.

For the current RTP, Metro claims to have done new modeling with its “Vision Eval” model.  That modeling assumes that average vehicle ages fall to less than seven years, and that passenger cars make up more than 70 percent of household vehicles.

Both Gregor’s and Metro’s climate modeling assumes we will quickly replace the existing fleet of large, dirty fossil fueled vehicles, with newer, smaller, more efficient vehicles powered by electricity and/or clean fuels.  The modeling asserted that the amount of carbon pollution generated by each mile of vehicle traveled would be 80 percent less than it is today.  Unfortunately, we’re nowhere close to being on this trend.

The key assumptions are average vehicle age and mix of trucks/SUVs Metro and LCDC rely on projections of these emissions that have already been proven wrong.  Metro and LCDC assumed, critically and incorrectly, that the vehicle fleet would turnover more rapidly (dirty, older cars would be replaced more frequently by newer, cleaner ones) and that consumer preferences would shift from larger, dirtier trucks and SUVs to smaller and cleaner passenger vehicles.  Not only are both of these assumptions wrong, exactly the opposite has happened over the past decade:  the average age of automobiles has increased significantly, and the share of light trucks and SUVs has grown to almost 80 percent of new car sales.  The following RTP table summarizes Metro’s assumptions:

Metro’s assumptions are simply wrong:   the average car on the road today is vastly dirtier than assumed in Metro and LCDC modeling.  In essence, the climate modeling assumes that the typical car in today’s fleet is a relatively clean six-year-old Honda Civic, that emits about 257 grams per mile.  In reality, the typical vehicle in today’s fleet is a twelve-year-old quarter-ton pickup truck, that emits about twice as much greenhouse gases—555 grams per mile.

2023 Model assumption:  Typical car is a 2017 Honda Civic; 2023 Reality:  Typical vehicle is a 2010 Ford F-150.

These two mistakes in the Metro/LCDC modeling lead them to understate greenhouse gas emissions from the current fleet by 50 percent.

And these errors also affect future years.  The growing longevity of the vehicle fleet means that the future fleet will be less efficient (and much dirtier) than assumed in Metro’s modeling.  If the average age of vehicles stabilizes at the current 12 years, the median vehicle in 2035 will be a 2023 model year vehicle (eighty percent of which were larger, more polluting SUVs).  Fleet turnover will happen much more slowly, and emission rates will decline more slowly still.

Metro and LCDC projections assume that average emissions of GHGs will fall from about 450 grams per mile to about 100 grams per mile in 2045.  In reality, GHG emissions per mile are falling far more slowly.  In 2021, the average vehicle emitted about 390 grams per mile rather than the roughly 300 grams per mile assumed in Metro and state climate modeling.

The RTP should be based on actual, honest data about greenhouse as emissions

The first step is to accurately report our progress—actually backsliding—in terms of reducing transportation GHGs.  Instead of reporting claims based on models with false and now discredited assumptions, it needs to show that actual GHG emissions are rising, and present a clear case showing why this has happened.  It’s been because we’re keeping cars longer, buying bigger, dirtier vehicles, driving more, and not improving fuel efficiency as fast as excessively optimistic assumptions made a decade ago.  We have to “mark to market” our forecasts:  replace decade old guesses about what our transportation emissions would be with actual data on what we’ve really accomplished.

Once we’ve done that, we’ll see that we need to do much more, and do it far more quickly than we thought.  It’s been nine years since Metro adopted its Climate Smart Strategy in 2014.  Those nine years represent fully one-fourth of the time available to get the region on track to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 75 percent by 2050.  During those nine years, regional transportation greenhouse gas emissions have actually risen (by more than 20 percent, according to the DARTE inventory).  That means we have a bigger task, and a shorter period of time to accomplish it.  This simply isn’t reflected in the Regional Transportation Plan, in  state land use regulations, or the Oregon Department of Transportation’s “State Transportation Strategy (STS).

Appendix:  Vehicles are older, larger and dirtier than assumed in Metro climate models

The strategy assumes trends in vehicle type, fuel efficiency and fleet replacement that are the opposite of what we’ve experienced.  All of these errors lead to understating GHG emissions.

REALITY:  Average Vehicle Age is Increasing

Slower fleet turnover means that the vehicles on the road are on average, older and dirtier.  State modeling assumes that older vehicles are being replaced quickly; with the average age of a vehicle being 6 or 7 years.  In reality, the average vehicle is more than 12 years old.  The Oregon Department of Transportation reports that the average age of vehicles in Oregon is higher than the national average (14 years) and is increasing.  The climate modeling is wildly off:  the fleet is getting older, and the models assumed it would be getting younger.

The slow rate of fleet replacement is a particularly large problem for the modeling.  With an average age of 12 years, the median vehicle in 2035 will be a 2023 model.  Those vehicles average about 330 grams per mile.  That’s about 80 percent higher than the 180 grams per mile that state modeling assumes for the fleet in 2035.  The increasingly long life of vehicles locks in a high carbon emission rate.

The average age of vehicles on the road has increased to more than 12 years according to IHS Automotive.

REALITY:  Trucks and SUVs make up nearly 80 percent of new car sales. 

Fewer passenger cars, more light trucks and sport utility vehicles.  State modeling assumed that the share of trucks and SUVs would decline steadily, and that 60 percent or more of all private vehicles would be passenger cars, which use less fuel and emit less greenhouse gases.  In reality, nearly 80 percent of new vehicles sold today are light trucks and sport utility vehicles. The climate modeling is off by a factor of three, with passenger cars accounting for 20% of the fleet, not 60 percent.

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 from the project’s excessive width

WSDOT plans to cover I-5 in Vancouver for less than $40 million

The fundamental problem with the Rose Quarter project, and the reason why it has blown through its budget is that really a massive freeway widening project.  The agency claims its just adding a couple of “auxiliary” lanes, but in reality, its doubling the width of Interstate 5 in a complex urban environment, and its plans for a much wider roadway are the principal reason the project, and its covers, are so expensive.

A too wide freeway.

What no one seems willing to do is ask basic questions about the Rose Quarter.  Is the project worth $1.9 billion?  Does it even need to be that big and expensive?  Isn’t the skyrocketing cost and ODOT’s growing fiscal crisis a signal that we should consider some other options?

The high cost and prodigious cost overruns of the Rose Quarter are directly related to the excessive width of the project, something that ODOT has gone to great lengths to conceal, characterizing the project as merely adding a single auxiliary lane in each direction. In reality, the project would essentially double the width of I-5 through the Rose Quarter, from its current 82-foot width, to 160 feet (and in some places as much as 200 feet).

A brief chronology shows how ODOT staff have repeatedly concealed or obscured the width of the I-5 Rose Quarter project.  Their initial 2019 Environmental Assessment presented a misleading and cartoonish freeway-cross section that appeared to show that the freeway would be widened to about 126 feet.

City Observatory challenged these claims about the width of the freeway to the Oregon Transportation Commission in December 2020, and the commission directed the staff to meet with us to discuss the issue.  The staff refused to answer any questions during this meeting, and instead later issued a written report obfuscating the actual width of the freeway.

In March 2021, No More Freeways obtained three different internal project documents indicating that the actual width of the roadway would be 160 feet.  These included 2015 engineering drawings, as well as architect’s illustrations and computerized CAD files.

As we’ve pointed out at City Observatory, this cross-section could easily accommodate  10 travel lanes, and regardless of ODOT’s labeling, once built, the road could be re-striped in an afternoon.

Even the project’s Supplemental Environmental Assessment, released in November 2022 conceals the actual width of the project.  Here is the project’s own plan showing the freeway cross-section.  The plan omits measurements, so we’ve added scale markings showing 200 foot widths.

ODOT’s own consultants, the internationally recognized engineering firm ARUP, concluded that the Rose Quarter project was vastly wider than it needed to be.  They pointed out that no comparable urban freeway in any city has the over-wide 12 foot shoulders designed into the Rose Quarter project.  ARUP concluded that the extreme width of the ODOT design was the principal reason freeway covers cost so much, and said the freeway could be 40 feet narrower than ODOT’s design.  ODOT’s own “Cost to Complete” report concedes that a key cost driver is the need to lower the surface of the existing roadway in order to provide the necessary vertical clearance over the much thicker overpass beams that will be needed to span the wider roadway.

Covers alone could be vastly cheaper

If this project consisted simply of building a cover over the existing I-5 freeway, it would be vastly cheaper.  Washington’s Department of Transportation is proposing to build a similar cover over a portion of I-5 in Vancouver as part of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project; The cover, called the “Community Connector” is designed to re-connect historic Fort Vancouver with the city’s downtown.  It will be about 300 feet wide, and about an acre in size and is estimated to cost $37 million.

Vancouver’s proposed Community Connector cover I-5 for just $37 million

ODOT has never explored simply building a lid over the existing freeway to “re-connect” the community.  If this were simply about building a cover to re-connect the community, it could have been done by now for a fraction of the $115 million ODOT has spent so far, just on planning the Rose Quarter.

What to do instead:

ODOT could cap the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter without widening it.  And if ODOT is really committed to “restorative justice” reallocate available money for this project as reparations to the Albina community, and allow them to spend it however they see fit to rectify the damage done by the construction of of I-5, Interstate Avenue and the Fremont Bridge ramps.  Oregon routinely spends highway funds mitigating the environmental damage of its freeways, on everything from sound walls to wetlands.  It also has used highway funds to replace displaced structures (the old Rocky Butte Jail), and other states have used federal highway funds to replace housing destroyed by freeway construction.  If we were serious about redressing the harm done to the Albina neighborhood, we’d be looking to reduce the size of I-5, and spend more money improving the neighborhood, and building the housing ODOT destroyed.

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

ODOT professed a strong interest in helping Black contractors as a selling point for the
I-5 Rose Quarter project, but instead advanced the I-205 Abernethy Bridge project, which has provided very little opportunities for Black-owned firms.

ODOT has been dangling promises of lucrative construction contracts for Black construction firms if its proposed $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project goes forward.  Not surprisingly, as we reported earlier, these firms and many in the local community were angered to hear that the Rose Quarter project was being delayed, probably indefinitely, because ODOT lacks funds—and shifted the funding it did have to a different project.

ODOT has prominently advertised that it intended to hire Black contractors to undertake a significant portion of the I-5 Rose Quarter project.  Even though the project was, according to the agency, only about 15 percent designed in 2010, the agency signed a contract with a joint venture (Sundt/Raimore).  One of the partner firms, Raimore Construction, is Black-owned.  An article published in The Oregonian quoted ODOT officials as saying that Raimore would be expected to bill more than $100 million in project costs (this when the project’s price tag was estimated at a mere $795 million).

Now it appears that the Rose Quarter project is going nowhere fast.  ODOT’s latest financial plan reports that the agency has almost no money to meet the project’s $1.9 billion construction cost.Par

A lot of this has to do with the project’s exploding cost, but as we noted earlier, ODOT diverted the funding that was originally earmarked for the Rose Quarter (a project in Oregon’s historically Black Albina neighborhood) and instead used it to pay for the I-205 Abernethy Bridge project in the wealthier and much whiter suburb of West Linn.  The members of the Historic Albina Advisory Board, which include Black contractors, have expressed anger that ODOT isn’t moving forward with the Rose Quarter Project—which now as a $1.35 to $1.75 billion funding deficit.

A disparity in Black contracting

The $622 million I-205 Abernethy Bridge project is the biggest source of highway construction contracts in Oregon in nearly half a century, according to ODOT. but so far, African-American construction firms have gotten just one-tenth of one percent of contract payments, according to ODOT reports.  While the I-5 Rose Quarter project was supposed to provide $100 million in contract payments for its lead Black contractor (and likely more for subcontractors), Black contractors have so far gotten just 142,000 of the $126 million disbursed for the Abernethy Bridge.

Apparently, ODOT is only committed to hiring Black contractors when they can provide politically valuable leverage for a project in Northeast Portland.

The one big ODOT highway project that is moving forward has provided only a tiny amount of work for African-American contractors.  ODOT’s I-205 project dashboard shows that the agency is well behind in meeting its diversity goals and that only about one-tenth of one percent of contracted payments have gone to African-American firms.

ODOT set a goal of providing 14 percent of contract revenues with certified disadvantaged business enterprises (which include women-owned and minority-owned businesses).  To date, ODOT has disbursed $126 million to all contractorsand Its current dashboard shows $12 million has gone to certified disadvantaged business subcontractors, only about 9 percent of the total–well below its goal. The bulk of these funds have gone to businesses owned by women, Asian-Americans, and Native-Americans.

Only about $142,000 out of $126 million, a little more than one-tenth of one percent, have gone to African-American businesses.

The $622 million that ODOT plans to spend on the I-205 Abernethy Bridge, makes it the biggest source of contracting opportunities in recent memory.  On its website, ODOT brags:

“The I-205 project is the largest ODOT highway project in 45 years.”

If ODOT were seriously interested in bolstering opportunities for African-American businesses there’s no reason that they should not be able to qualify for contracts.

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 a bonanza of community improvements and lucrative construction contracts as part of its I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project.  A key part of ODOT’s marketing of the freeway widening is a claim that highway covers (really oversized overpasses) will be instrumental in providing restorative justice to the Albina neighborhood that was ripped apart by three different ODOT highway projects over several decades.

At its June 27, 2023 meeting, ODOT staff dropped the bombshell that after more than five years of planning, ODOT simply doesn’t have the money to pay to actually build the Rose Quarter project.  Members of the HAAB feel they’ve been betrayed.

‘This is not okay’: Black committee members respond to Rose Quarter funding shortfall at emotional meeting

ODOT staff tried to claim that the project’s apparent demise was because of a May  decision to suspend tolling for at least two years, to 2026.  At the HAAB meeting on June 27, Brendan Finn squarely put the blame on Governor Tina Kotek’s decision to postpone tolling in Oregon:

Something’s happening down in Salem that I want to share with all of y’all . . . we have been moving forward on two separate tolling programs.  The Rose Quarter project is intertwined with those tolling programs in that they are supposed to help pay for portions of construction  . .  . we’ve known going through the design process together over the years that this project is under-funded— it was way underfunded.  . . . Governor Kotek came into office   . . . and said to us you got to take a little bit more time with tolling . . . so she delayed the implementation of tolling . . . that has reverberations on all of our projects and the timing of implementation . . . we have put together a a financial plan for for these pieces that takes into account the fact that we are not going to be getting the revenue from tolling.

As a result, Finn conceded, the Rose Quarter project would be put on life support, with barely enough money to keep planning moving forward, and construction delayed for at least two years (and likely much longer).  The members of the HAAB could tell they were in deep trouble, but Finn’s explanation—effectively blaming Governor Kotek’s suspension of tolling—isn’t right.  The actual cause of the project’s demise is much different.  Every step of the way, over the past five years. ODOT has taken actions that undercut the progress of the Rose Quarter project and instead elevated and accelerated another project, a $622 million rebuilding of the I-205 Abernethy Bridge in the wealthy and predominantly white suburb of West Linn, rather than the Rose Quarter (in Portland’s historically Black Albina neighborhood).

Along the way, ODOT:

• “found” money to move the I-205 project forward when the Legislature appropriated nothing for its construction.
• diverted state gas tax funds originally earmarked by the 2017 Oregon Legislature for the Rose Quarter to pay for the I-205 bridge
• Used Rose Quarter funding to enable the I-205 bridge to circumvent federal environmental review (which has delayed the Rose Quarter project)
• Accelerated signing construction contracts for the I-205 bridge, putting it ahead of Rose Quarter in line for state funding
• Proceeded with the I-205 bridge even though its cost as increased by 150 percent since 2018, from $250 million to $622 million
• Officially told the federal government that it wasn’t “reasonably foreseeable” that the Rose Quarter project would be financed by tolling revenues.

As a result of all these decisions, the I-205 Bridge is moving forward, and ODOT, by its own admission is committing to paying for the bridge even if that state raises no toll revenue.  Meanwhile, the Rose Quarter project is languishing, and is no closer to construction than it was six years ago.

It’s baffling that Finn would blame ODOT’s financial woes on Governor Kotek’s recent actions.  It’s been apparent for years that ODOT has lacked the money to actually build the Rose Quarter project, and Kotek has been Governor for just six months.  In 2021, as House Speaker, Kotek voted against the bill that allowed the diversion of funds from the Rose Quarter (HB 3055) and urged ODOT to “right-size” its mega-highway projects.  And in May, as Governor, Kotek finally insisted on injecting a note of fiscal realism into ODOT’s work by requiring this new financial plan for its megaprojects.  As we’ll see, all of the financial problems plaguing the Rose Quarter project pre-date the Kotek Administration and are the direct product of decisions made by ODOT staff, including Finn.

About the HAAB and the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Project

The I-5 Rose Quarter project would widen about 1.5 miles of freeway in North and Northeast Portland.  Part of the project involves constructing a partial cover over a portion of the freeway, ostensibly to make up for the damage the freeway did in dividing the historically Black Albina neighborhood.  (Construction of I-5 in the 1960s was actually one of three ODOT projects that divided and helped trigger the decline of Albina.  Facing community resistance to the project in September 2020, ODOT unilaterally disbanded an earlier community advisory group—which was raising uncomfortable questions—and instead created the Historic Albina Advisory Board.  ODOT rebranded the project as contributing to “restorative justice” in part by building the covers, and in part by implying it would hire Black contractors to do much of the work.  In City Observatory’s view, there are multiple fatal flaws with the Rose Quarter project:  it’s vastly too expensive, doesn’t fix any safety problem, won’t reduce congestion, will actually increase pollution, and doesn’t revitalize the neighborhood.  

A 2017 Earmark for the Rose Quarter:  Diverted by ODOT

The Legislature’s landmark 2017 transportation package specifically included the $450 million in funds for the Rose Quarter in the form of a 2 cent per gallon statewide gas tax.  The bill contained no funding the I-205 project.  Even so, in 2018, ODOT used its discretion to divert more than $50 million from a variety of sources to move the I-205 project forward.  Here’s a list of the funds ODOT scraped together to pay for I-205:

Then, in 2021, ODOT convinced the Legislature pass HB 3055, to open up the $450 million set aside for the Rose Quarter project for other projects, including the I-205 Abernethy Project.  ODOT quickly used that discretion to effectively commit all of that money to paying for I-205, rather than the Rose Quarter.

Evading federal environmental review for I-205 by using Rose Quarter funds

ODOT used the Rose Quarter funding diversion to evade federal environmental review of the I-205 project. ODOT assured the Federal Highway Administration that the Abernethy Bridge could be built without any toll revenues, by diverting the funds originally earmarked for the Rose Quarter.  This enabled ODOT to get an exemption from federal environmental review—a CE or “categorical exclusion.” If ODOT hadn’t offered those assurances, FHWA would have had to perform a lengthy Environmental Assessment on the I-205 bridge project (called “Phase 1a”), something that has slowed the I-5 Rose Quarter project.  Here’s the FHWA’s official finding:

[Emily Kline, “Re-Evaluation of the Categorical Exclusion for the I-205: Stafford Road to OR 213 Improvements Project, Federal Highway Administration, May 4, 2022, page 3.]

A key reason for the Rose Quarter’s delay, despite its head-start over the I-205 bridge, is ODOT’s flawed project development process and environmental assessment.  The City of Portland pulled out of the project in 2020 citing a lack of community engagement.  And the Federal Highway Administration rescinded the project’s Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), in part because of flaws in the ODOT-prepared Environmental Assessment. Only the personal intervention of then-Governor Kate Brown revived the project.

ODOT gave preferential treatment to the I-205 bridge project

ODOT also chose to launch the Abernethy Bridge construction first, expediting a construction contract, even though the bridge repair came in at double ODOT’s cost estimate. (And in an unnoticed part of ODOT’s new financial plan is an acknowledgment that the Abernethy Bridge Project will now cost $622 million, up from $500 million a year ago).

Now that the Abernethy project is launched, ODOT is dissembling about the role of tolls.  The agency’s finance director flatly contradicted the FHWA finding in his testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission on June 28.  Brouwer said:

. . . we’ve already put the Abernethy Bridge Project out to bid based on the assumption of being able to toll this and it is under contract, under construction so we have now that the situation where if for any reason tolls on I-205 do not move forward whether that’s due to action at the federal, state or regional level it would punch a significant hole in the finance plan.

As a result, the failure to toll I-205 now will likely jeopardize funding for the Rose Quarter, because ODOT is contractually obligated to pay for the Abernethy Bridge even if tolling doesn’t materialize.

Rose Quarter:  Cost Overruns and No Funding Plan

As we’ve documented, the Rose Quarter has chalked up an impressive string of cost-overruns, with new, and much higher cost figures, arriving every 18 to 24 months.  The project was originally budgeted at $450 million when approved in 2017, jumped to $795 million just two years later, and then to $1.45 billion in 2021, and now $1.9 billion

In September 2021, the Oregon Transportation Commission, shocked by the new cost figures, directed ODOT staff to come back with a new finance plan by December of 2021. As Willamette Week reported, OTC was hoping somebody else would ride to the rescue:

The OTC told ODOT staff to come back with a funding proposal by Dec. 1 that includes significantly more than the $500 million to $700 million available from the state. The commission directed ODOT to include specific information in the funding plan, including (1) an estimate of the amount of dedicated funding needed to build the project and (2) “a discussion of whether a viable plan to secure that dedicated funding from federal, state and/or the city of Portland, Metro, Multnomah County, TriMet and other organizations in Portland is reasonably likely to be authorized and appropriated by July 1, 2023.”

The department completely missed that deadline.  More than 18 months later, in May 2023, the staff showed up at a Commission meeting and asked for yet another year of delay to prepare a financial plan.  This project’s financial woes are not the product of the recently announced tolling postponement; they’re a long-standing dereliction of financial duty by ODOT.

Rose Quarter is now permanently behind an even more expensive Abernethy Bridge.

Now that the Abernethy Bridge has started construction, that project takes absolute priority over the Rose Quarter project. As ODOT Finance Director Travis Brouwer testified to the Oregon Transportation Commission on June 28, because the agency had started the I-205 Abernethy Bridge, that was “locked in.”

. . . we have started on the I-205 Abernethy bridge and so that is locked in . . .

OTC Vice Chair Lee Beyer confirmed that in his comments in the meeting:

. . . one of the fiscal realities is we have to move forward on Abernathy because we’re in the midst of construction we really don’t have an alternative there . . “

But the loss of funding was only part of the problem:  ODOT has badly botched the design of the Rose Quarter project, leading to an escalating series of cost overruns.  The project which was estimated to cost $450 million in 2017, jumped to $795 million in 2018, to $1.45 billion in 2021, and now to $1.9 billion.

Rose Quarter’s Fatal Flaw:  A Too Wide Design

All of these cost increases are driven by ODOT’s decision to build a massively wider freeway.  The current roadway is about 82 feet wide; ODOT plans to double it to 160 feet (and in places 200 feet).  ODOT has got to great lengths to conceal the actual dimensions of the freeway, and claims that it’s adding just one auxiliary lane in each direction.  The reality is its intent on building a roadway broad enough for ten travel lanes (up from four today).

ODOT’s own consultants, the internationally recognized engineering firm ARUP, explicitly said that ODOT was designing an excessively wide roadway, with shoulders in the covered section wider than in any city in North America.  It recommended reducing the width of the roadway by more than 40 feet.

The excessive width of the roadway is the biggest cost driver.  It necessitates huge and expensive columns and girders to carry local streets across the widened freeway.  And because the beams supporting the road (and proposed covers) have to be much taller than current beams, ODOT has to depress the roadbed of the freeway below its current level—excavating at great expense to assure adequate vertical clearance for the new road.

ODOT’s attempt to package the I-5 Rose Quarter project as “restorative justice” for the damage a series of ODOT highway construction projects did to the Albina neighborhood from the 1950s to the 1970.  Grafting elaborate (but still very constrained) covers on to its overly wide freeway is plainly uneconomical.

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 recent plans to put tolling on hold for two years, prompted Governor Tina Kotek to direct a new look at project plans and agency finances.  ODOT has cancelled one project (Phase 2 of I-205), and effectively admitted it has no way to pay for another, the I-5 Rose Quarter project.  The new plan reveals yet more cost-overruns on these already bloated projects, and in reality, provides no explanation of how they might be funded.

For the record: Joe Cortright. I’m an economist with City Observatory and a member of No More Freeways. I’m commenting on the Urban Mobility Finance Plan developed by your staff. This isn’t really so much a plan at all as as it is a belated and only partial admission of the deep-seated structural financial problems for which your staff has no serious solution. The “plan” that they are offering is a vague hope that more federal and state funds will magically appear for the projects in the Urban Mobility plan.

The fiscal crisis that ODOT is now in was foreseeable and foreseen to anyone who took a serious look at the at the agency’s finances. Your revenue model and your expenditure processes are broken: the gas tax is already coming in below projections and is projected to decline further. Vehicle miles traveled, according to your own forecasts, are in permanent decline. State climate goals call for a 50 percent decline in gasoline sales which will further reduce your revenue.

And we received notice earlier this month that the Highway Cost Allocation Study shows that because of ODOT spending patterns we’ll have to reimburse trucks and heavy over-the-road vehicles about $220 million per year. So your revenue situation is far worse than you’ve acknowledged.

In the face of this, the Urban Mobility Plan is confronting you with huge cost overruns. We’ve seen that the Rose Quarter Project’s price tag has now ballooned to $1.9 billion —more than four times the $450 million that the Legislature was told that this project would cost when it approved it in 2017.

Despite these cost overruns, there is not one word in this plan about right-sizing any of these projects, which are all over-built. I would note that then-Speaker now Governor Tina Kotek called for right-sizing these projects in 2021 when she voted against House Bill 3055 which authorized the commission to do additional borrowing.

Please take a close look at the scale of these projects, because your staff has concealed exactly how large these projects are. This is the reason they’re so expensive is that the Rose Quarter project is a 10-lane wide freeway project and the Interstate Bridge Replacement is a 12-lane wide freeway project. If these projects were right-sized they would be vastly less expensive.

Finally you’re counting on toll revenues to bail out your financial situation. As an economist I can tell you the effect of tolls will be to reduce traffic, which in many respects is a good thing. But by tolling these roadways to pay for them, you will essentially obviate the need for additional capacity. ODOT’s own studies of the Rose Quarter project show that implementation of Regional Mobility Pricing will be more effective in reducing congestion than the now $1.9 billion cost of widening the roadway through there.

In the past you’ll pursued a piecemeal approach to these projects. ODOT is in the midst of a serious financial crisis: the cost of these projects is exploding. It’s time to take a serious objective look —and I just have to say as somebody who’s been commenting on these projects for more than a couple of decades now— some engagement by your staff in a serious fashion, rather than just two minutes of enduring the comments that we make and then simply ignoring them would be much appreciated. We have technical expertise and would be happy to engage with your staff and assist the commission to deal with the gnarly financial problems that it faces.

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 isn’t dead, its officially just “indefinitely postponed.”  This, in exactly the same way that the White Star Lines could still describe the arrival of RMS Titanic as “indefinitely postponed.”

Opposition to the project was led by No More Freeways, a grassroots Portland group fighting billions of dollars of freeway widening projects being pushed by ODOT.  No More Freeways filed detailed objections and critiques of the project technical work in comments on its Environmental Assessment. In addition, NMF’s community members submitted over 300 comments in opposition to the I-205 expansion during the public comment period last spring, including technical comments pointing out the explicit violation of federal environmental protection law. 

ODOT’s proposed I-205 expansion was listed as one of the worst transportation projects in the country in USPIRG’s “Highway Boondoggles” report in 2022. 

In a prepared statement, No More Freeways co-founder Chris Smith said:

“No More Freeways is delighted to learn that the Oregon Department of Transportation proposes indefinitely postponing expansion of Interstate 205 even as the agency acknowledges they simply do not have a path forward to fund the now $1.9 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. 

These are both massive victories for any Oregonian who enjoys clean air, safer streets, a hospitable planet, and fiscal responsibility from their state government. Now more than ever, No More Freeways continues to insist that ODOT conduct a thorough Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion that studies alternatives to expensive freeway expansion that reduce congestion while bringing clean air and justice to the Albina neighborhood.”

This decision saves Oregon taxpayers more than $400 million that would otherwise be spent on this highway widening project.

Scratch one flat top

In May of 1942, in the darkest days of World War II, American naval aviators struck the first blow agains the previously un-beaten Japanese Navy at the Battle of Coral Sea.  American dive-bombers, led by Lieutenant Commander Robert Dixon, attacked and sank the aircraft carrier Shoho; Dixon famously signaled “Scratch one flattop,” which subsequently became a rallying cry for Allied forces.

We can only hope that this first small victory will signal a turning of the tide in the battle against wasteful and counterproductive highway expansion projects.  Oregon DOT continues to maintain the fiction that its now-$1.9 billion Rose Quarter project is still alive, but it too, will have to yield to the fiscal reality that the highway department is essentially broke and doesn’t have the resources to maintain the roads it currently has, much less build enormously expensive new ones.

There’s plenty of time to fix the Interstate Bridge Project

Contrary to claims made by OregonDOT and WSDOT officials, the federal government allows considerable flexibility in funding and re-designing, especially shrinking costly and damaging highway widening projects

In Cincinnati, the $3.6 billion Brent Spence Bridge Project

• Was downsized 40 percent without causing delays due to environmental reviews
• Got $1.6 billion in Federal grants, with only about $250 million in state funding plus vague promises to pay more
• Is still actively looking to re-design ramps and approaches to free up 30 acres of downtown land

For years, the managers of the Interstate Bridge Project have been telling local officials that if they so much as changed a single bit of the proposed IBR project, that it would jeopardize funding and produce impossible delays.  Asked whether it’s possible to change the design, and they frown, and gravely intone that “our federal partners” would be displeased, and would not allow even the most minor change.  It’s a calculated conversation stopper—and it’s just not true.

Across the country, in Cincinnati, local leaders–who’ve already gotten a commitment of $1.6 billion in federal funds—based on a modest down payment and vague commitments to pay more.  Collectively, Kentucky and Ohio still have to figure out where about $1.5 billion in state funding will come from.

Last year, in response to local government concerns, the two state DOTs reduced the size of the Brent Spence Bridge by 40 percent from the version that the Ohio and Kentucky DOTs pushed through the environmental review process.  And that change isn’t expected to affect its environmental approvals or timetable.

Not only that, but local governments–led by Cincinnati—are still actively pushing for a major re-design of the bridge’s on- and off-ramps to free up 40 acres of land in downtown Cincinnati for urban redevelopment—something that they believe can be done without jeopardizing the project.

This is an object lesson for Oregon and Washington:  The federal government doesn’t require all local funding to be in place before it makes its commitment, it’s possible to shrink a project even after its gotten its environmental approval, and its also possible, even after getting the federal funding, to make major changes to the project design to lessen its impact on urban spaces.

As Metro President David Bragdon observed, Oregon and Washington DOT officials routinely lie about federal requirements and deadlines to block local officials from designing better and more affordable highway projects.

Leadership at ODOT frequently told me things that were not true, bluffed about things they did not know, made all sorts of misleading claims, and routinely broke promises. They continually substituted PR and lobbying gambits in place of sound engineering, planning and financial acumen, treating absolutely everything as merely a challenge of spin rather than matters of dollars or physical reality.  . . . ODOT management has revived one of its favorite old falsehoods by claiming they are facing an “imminent federal deadline,” and that if local leaders don’t knuckle under to ODOT’s plan–and soon–the region will lose millions or tens of millions of dollars forever.  Creating fictional “federal deadlines” and other federal processes as an excuse for false urgency is a familiar ODOT tactic.

For too long, highway officials have gotten away with their best Jerry Lundegaard impressions, telling state and local officials that their hands are tied, because their manager (in another room) just won’t approve a better deal or not charging for the under-coating.  Cincinnati’s Brent Spence project shows the federal government will allow changes that make highway projects have fewer environmental impacts, become more affordable, and benefit local communities.

Honey:  I shrank the bridge

The original design for the Brent Spence Bridge was approved by the US Department of Transportation in a “Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact, (FONSI)” in 2012.  As originally proposed, the bridge would have been nearly 150 feet wide.  Not only was this design over-sized (and expensive) but it had significant impacts on  the City of Covington Kentucky (the southern terminus of the new bridge).  The project languished without funding for more than a decade.

In 2022, the Kentucky and Ohio Departments of Transportation agreed to significantly reduce the width of the project.  They width of the double-decker bridge was reduced from 145.5 feet to 84 feet.

In June, 2022, the new, much more compact design was announced:

Based on engagement and technical analysis, the announced Friday said, the footprint of the new bridge has been significantly reduced from the alternative approved in 2012. . . . . The new bridge was planned to cover nearly 25 acres and span nearly 150 feet in width. Revised plans show the new bridge at almost half the size of the 2012 footprint – covering approximately 14 acres and 84 feet in width. (emphasis added)

This was a major concession to local leaders:

Covington Mayor Joe Meyer, led the negotiation for the City, called the agreement a monumental victory for Covington residents and businesses.  . . . “Meyer said it will “reduce the width of the driving companion bridge by over 40 %. It’s a 61 and a half foot reduction in the driving width of that bridge.They’ve reduced the additional right of way that was necessary by 10 acres, another 40 plus percent reduction in right of way acquisition.”

The Federal Highway Administration is being asked to “re-evaluate” it s NEPA approval.  The Kentucky and Ohio transportation departments are preparing an updated Environmental Assessment, and FHWA is expected to issue a revised “FONSI” this Fall.  The key argument made by the state transportation departments is that the new, smaller design is within the “footprint” of the already approved 2012 design, and therefore can be expected to have fewer environmental impacts.

Here’s the lesson for Oregon and Washington:  Just because the decade-old plans for your bridge called for a massively wider freeway, nothing in the federal environmental review process precludes you from making the project smaller.  That won’t slow down the environmental review process, and it’s no obstacle to getting federal funding.  For the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement project, this means that a right-sized bridge, coupled with retaining (rather than replacing) existing interchanges, would likely get FHWA approval.

The bridge is approved:  Now let’s re-design it

The current design for the Brent Spence Bridge is now 40 percent smaller than it was a year ago—but the re-design is not over.  Like the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement Project, the Brent Spence “Corridor” project calls for an expensive set of on- and off-ramps to connect to the new bridge.  On the Cincinnati side of the river, this spaghetti of ramps and intersections would foreclose the urban use of more than 30 acres of prime real estate in the city’s downtown.  Rather than repeat the devastating mistakes of past freeway construction–which obliterated most of Cincinnati’s historically Black neighborhoods–local leaders are calling for a re-design of Brent Spence’s ramps and connections to restore urban use.

 

Keep in mind that President Biden announced the approval of federal funding in January of this year.  Right now, in May, 2023, the Cincinnati City Council is pushing forward with plans to re-design the project as it passes through the city. The current Cincinnati Mayor, Aftab Pureval, and two former Mayors, John Cranley and Mark Mallory—have all spoken out in favor of a fundamental re-design of the Brent Spence Bridge to dramatically shrink its complex of interchanges and off-ramps, and free up more than 30 acres of land that were devastated by freeway construction. They’re calling on the Ohio Department of Transportation, and US DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg, to give them flexibility to re-design the project—something the city has done successfully with other highways in Cincinnati:

We also applaud Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (whom we have both known for many years) for implementing new rules that reward designs that are urban friendly. The federal government now embraces the kind of progressive vision our city showed in redoing Fort Washington Way and the I-71/MLK interchange.

The progressive design build process that ODOT has rightly put in place requires that local input be an official part of selecting a contractor and finalizing with that contractor a design that meets local goals and ambitions. That process has only just begun and any suggestion that it is “too late” to make design improvements isn’t paying attention to recent changes ushered in by Secretary Buttigieg.

A local group, called Bridge Forward, has come up with a plan to reduce the footprint of the onramps, and trigger urban renovation:

This has a direction implication for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project in Portland and Vancouver.  In their $7.5 billion project, ODOT and WSDOT are proposing to re-create, and rebuild at great expense, seven closely spaced freeway interchanges, which they—and independent consultants they hired—have said are a fundamental cause of the highway congestion and which are a majority of the cost of the bloated project.

As Cincinnati’s experience shows, even after the bridge has been down-sized, and the federal money committed, there’s still the opportunity to get a more sensible, sensitive design.

The Ohio experience with the Brent Spence Bridge shows that, if local leaders are in agreement, we can shrink the size of the project to reduce its cost, and continue to explore designs that are less disruptive to the urban fabric without slowing down the federal funding, environmental approval, or construction contracting processes.

No money down:  The Feds contributed to the project in return for partial state funding and vague commitments, not hard cash

A key talking point of the Oregon and Washington DOTs is that Oregon has to put $1 billion on the table in order to apply for federal funds.  That’s clearly not the case with the Brent Spence Bridge.  Local television news station WKRC reported that President Biden committed $1.6 billion in federal funds for the project’s total cost, estimated at $3.5 billion.  So far the only state commitments are a $250 million pledge from the Kentucky legislature and an vague statement from Ohio Governor that his state would “pay its share:  That leaves more than $1.5 billion that the two states expected have yet to come up with, as WKRC reported:

That leaves another $1.5 billion in costs to be split between Ohio and Kentucky. The Kentucky General Assembly last year pledged $250 million toward the project, with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine also promising his state would pay its share.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) can’t tell the truth about the width of proposed $7.5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement Project

ODOT is more than doubling the width of the bridge from its existing 77 feet to 164 feet.

The agency can’t even admit these simple facts, and instead produces intentionally misleading and out of scale drawings to make their proposed bridge look smaller.

If engineers can’t answer a simple question about how wide a structure they’ll build, why should anyone have any confidence in their ability to accurately estimate costs or revenues?  

Why is the width of this bridge, and its actual appearance a state secret?

It’s a simple question, really:  How wide is the $7.5 billion”Interstate Bridge Replacement” that Oregon DOT is trying to sell the Oregon Legislature?  Several members of the Joint Transportation Committee put that very question to ODOT leaders, and simply got a gibberish non-answer.

Oregon DOT’s lobbyist, Lindsay Baker wrote a rambling response to the question, which alternately, offered a long digression on the history of the existing bridges, answered a question the legislators didn’t ask (combined the over-water space covered by the bridges, including the space between the bridges), and offered absurd and meaningless statistics (28 percent of structure area would be “dedicated” to transit.). Baker’s response even included a couple of diagrams—which as we will see were purposely altered to conceal the actual width of the proposed bridge, and make it look smaller. Instead, the chief ODOT talking point is that they are merely adding “one auxiliary lane” in each direction to the existing bridge footprint.

Nothing in Baker’s non-response reveals the actual measurements of either the existing or proposed structures.  Let’s cut to the chase, because these are, ODOT obfuscation notwithstanding, simple facts (the kind the real engineers actually excel at).  The existing bridges have a combined roadway about 77 feet wide.  The proposed bridges would have a roadway that is 164 feet wide. ODOT proposes to more than double the width of the roadway across the river.  The existing bridges carry six lanes of traffic (three lanes in each direction).  The proposed structure is easily wide enough to carry twelve lanes—six in each direction.

Old Bridge:  77 Feet Wide; New Bridge 164 Feet Wide

How do we know this?  It takes a combination a two-second Internet search (the existing bridge) and a public records request and some algebra (the proposed bridge). First, for the record, the existing bridges have roadway widths of 38 feet and 39 feet respectively., for a total roadway width of 77 feet. 

It’s harder—much harder—to find the width of the structure ODOT is proposing.  In describing the width of the “locally preferred alternative” at the time it was approved by local governments, ODOT declined to say how wide the actual structure was, instead it cryptically reported that the LPA will be 16 feet narrower than the Columbia River Crossing proposed a decade ago. 

So, in order to know the width of the IBR, you have to know the width of the CRC.  And, the width of the CRC is effectively a state secret.  In its environment impact statement of 2011, ODOT erased all the actual measurements showing how wide that bridge would be—it took a public records request to get them to disclose that it would be 180 feet wide.  Here’s an excerpt of the plans we obtained via public records request, showing the CRC had a minimum width of roadway of more than 90 feet on the top decks of each of its two spans (other portions of the bridge are even wider, to accommodate a horizontal curve, as the bridge crosses the river). 

So the answer to the ODOT bridge width riddle is that the LPA is 164 feet wide:  180 feet (the width of the CRC) minus 16 feet equals 164 feet.  For the record, ODOT is planning two side-by-side, double-decker bridges with 82 foot top decks and 48 foot bottom decks.  That creates 164 feet of roadway on the top-deck of the two bridges.  In addition, there’s even more space on the bottom deck of these double decker bridges; the bottom decks are about 47 and a half feet wide, meaning that there’s a total of 95 feet of additional travel capacity on the two bottom decks.  ODOT’s plan is for the highway to be carried on the top decks of the two bridges, and for light rail to be located on the bottom deck of one bridge, and a bike/pedestrian path on the bottom deck of the second bridge.

Intentionally Misleading Images

In her letter Joint Transportation Committee, ODOT lobbyist Lindsay Baker waxed poetic about the width of the existing bridges, and included a couple of extremely misleading and not-to-scale drawings of the existing bridge and their proposed alternatives.  We’ll focus on the double-decker bridge alternative which ODOT has characterized as the official “Locally Preferred Alternative” (LPA).  Keep in mind, the Interstate Bridge Program has spent tens of millions of dollars on engineering; its predecessor spent $200 million on the nearly identical Columbia River Crossing, and when asked to provide a drawing, ODOT offers up some “not-to-scale” cartoons to answer a simple quantitative question.

Here are the illustrations Baker provided.  Above is the existing bridge, below is the proposed bridge

We’ve added one small annotation—a red bar showing the width of the wider of the two current bridges (39 feet).  We’ve copied that 39 foot measuring stick to ODOT’s drawing.  It seems to show that ODOT is squeezing four lanes of traffic into the same space as the current bridges three lanes.  But of course that isn’t true:  ODOT has rendered the two bridge images at different scales.  The first clue is that the cars and trucks in the lower, IBR drawing are much smaller than the cars and trucks in the upper (existing) drawing).  We printed out and measured their diagrams.  The top diagram is drawn at a scale of about 1:250 (about one inch equals 20 feet).  The bottom diagram is diagram is drawn at a scale of about 1:375 (one inch equals about 30 feet).  The scales are chosen explicitly to make the new bridge seem smaller than it really is.

We’ve corrected ODOT’s drawing by re-projecting their image at a comparable scale.  (This makes the trucks and cars roughly the same size in both drawings).  With this correction it’s now apparent that the ODOT plan is to more than double the width of the current roadway, from a combined 77 feet between the two existing bridges, to a total of 164 feet between the two proposed bridges.

More than Doubling the width of the I-5 highway bridges—Enough for a 12 full lanes

We know, that at a minimum, ODOT’s plan is to increase the roadway width across the Columbia River from 77 feet to 164 feet–more than doubling the width of the roadway.  The new bridge is 164 feet wide.  How wide is that exactly:  well, its almost exactly as wide as a football field (160 feet).

A 164 foot wide roadway can easily accommodate 12 travel lanes.  Standard travel lanes are 12 feet wide.  Twelve twelve foot travel lanes would occupy 144 feet of the 164 feet of roadway that ODOT proposes for its bridge structure—leaving 20 feet for shoulders.  It is not uncommon on urban roadways, especially on bridges, to accommodate shoulders in this area:  ODOT’s plan would allow for 4 foot inside (left) shoulders) on each crossing and 8 foot outside (right) shoulders.  For reference, as part of its $1.45 billion  I-5 Rose Quarter project, ODOT is proposing 11 foot travel lanes and shoulders of between 3 and 6.5 feet on a viaduct section of the project near I-84.  There’s nothing illegal, unusual, or substandard about 11 foot lanes and somewhat narrower shoulders on urban roadways:  In fact, the Federal Highway Administration prominently praised ODOT for narrow lanes and narrow shoulders on Portland’s I-84 Interstate Freeway.  Here is a page of the USDOT report, “USE OF NARROW LANES AND NARROW SHOULDERS ON FREEWAYS: A Primer on Experiences, Current Practice, and Implementation Considerations.” FHWA HOP-16-060.  The narrow shoulders on I-84 are also featured on the cover of the document.

IBR:  A Pattern of mIsleading, “not to scale” drawings.

Lying with pictures is nothing new for the IBR project.  As we’ve noted before, despite spending tens of millions of dollars on planning, and more than $1.5 million to build an extremely detailed “digital twin” of the proposed bridge, IBR has never released any renderings showing what the bridge and its mile long approaches will look like to human beings standing on the ground in Vancouver or on Hayden Island.  And the IBR also released similar misleading and not-to-scale drawings that intentionally made the height and navigation clearance of their proposed bridge look smaller than it actually is.

Hiding the actual width of the bridge they intend to build is a scene-for-scene remake of false claim made for the preceding project—the failed Columbia River Crossing (CRC). In 2010, in response to objections from the City of Portland and Metro, ODOT and WSDOT announced they were reducing the size of the CRC bridge from 12 lanes to 10 lanes. But in reality, all they did was change the references in the project documents to that number of lanes, while literally erasing from the Final Environmental Impact Statement every single reference to the actual widths of the bridges and other structures they intended to build. A public records request showed the actual plans for the bridges — which were not published — were exactly the same size (180 feet in width) as they were for the 12-lane version of the bridge.

ODOT seems to be congenitally incapable of revealing the actual width of any of the major projects it is proposing.  As we’ve pointed out at City Observatory, it has gone to great lengths to conceal the width of the proposed I-5 Rose Quarter project, which as it crosses under the Broadway and Weidler interchanges in Portland will be 160 feet wide.  While the project’s Environmental Assessment pretended the project was 126 feet wide (again, based on cartoon “not to scale” images), secret ODOT documents confirmed that the agency has always been planning a 160-wide roadway.

Reference

Here’s the full letter from ODOT’s Lindsay Baker to the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee.

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/271285

The HB 2098 “-2” amendments  are perhaps the most fiscally irresponsible legislation ever to be considered by the Oregon Legislature.  They constitute an open-ended promise by the Oregon Legislature to pay however much money it costs to build the Interstate Bridge Replacement and Rose Quarter freeway widenings—projects that have experienced multi-billion dollar cost overruns in the past few years, before even a single shovel of dirt has been turned.

HB 2098-2 amendments would:

• Raid the Oregon General Fund of $1 billion for road projects
• Give ODOT a blank check for billions of dollars of road spending
• Allow unfettered ODOT borrowing to preclude future Legislatures from changing these projects and forcing their funding
• Eliminate protective sideboards enacted by the Legislature a decade ago
• Enact a meaningless and unenforceable cap on project expenses.

Oregon’s transportation department is going broke:  Its major source of revenue, the gas tax, is in terminal decline, thanks to growing vehicle fuel efficiency and electrification.  The agency doesn’t even have enough money to maintain current roads, and has been cutting back on maintenance, and yet is set to embark on an unprecedented spending spree.

The “-2” Amendments will serve as a pretext for ODOT to borrow money to get each of these projects started, regardless of how much the projects will actually cost, and whether federal grants for these projects or toll revenues will cover even a fraction of their cost.

The bill does this because it knows that if legislators were asked to come up with the money for these projects today, by raising gas taxes or other road user fees, there’d be no stomach (or votes). So, instead, they’s simply let ODOT max out its credit cards, and sign construction contracts, and come back to the 2025 Legislature with a giant bill that it will have to pay.

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”

The Legislature seems bound and determined to enact into law this old Scottish proverb.  Section 3 of the -2 amendments declares the Legislature’s “intent” to borrow $1 billion in General Obligation Bonds, to be repaid over the next couple of decades or more from the state General Fund.  Section 11 of the -2 amendments further declares the Legislature’s “intent” to appropriate whatever it ends up costing to build the I-5 Rose Quarter project, with no reference to a specific dollar amount or source of funds.

The -2 amendments to HB 2098 don’t contain an explicit appropriation of funds, or a new source of revenue, or even a specific authorization to issue new debt.  Instead, we have just vague indications of intent:

“The Legislative Assembly intends to support the Interstate 5 bridge replacement project through an investment of $1 billion . . ”

“The Legislative Assembly affirms its intent to fully fund the Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Project in the 2024 and 2025 regular sessions of the Legislative Assembly.”

It’s far from clear what the legal meaning of these statements of “intent” have.  But the authors of the -2 amendments are trying to have it both ways:  they are trying to appropriate money, without actually appropriating money.  They’re not actually taking the step to spend these funds (and say where the money will come from) but are trying to commit future Legislatures to making those difficult decisions.  It might seem that statements of intent (like legislative resolutions and memorials) are merely legislative window-dressing, with no legal weight.  But it’s clear that the Oregon Department of Transportation has other plans.

“Intent” plus debt:  Committing future Legislatures to pay billions

Superficially, HB 2098-2 might seem like an empty letter—the Legislature often makes sweeping, feel good statements of intent—but the danger with this one is that it could serve as the basis for the Oregon Department of Transportation to pull out its credit card and borrow hundreds of millions of dollars, based on the vague promise that some future Legislature will pay these bills.  And this is no idle speculation:  this is exactly what ODOT did with the I-205 Abernethy Bridge Project.

It’s worth spending a minute to review that project.  In 2017, the Oregon Legislature adopted a major transportation package, which provided $450 million for the I-5 Rose Quarter project (paid for with a $30 million per year increase in gasoline and weight mile taxes).  That package conspicuously did not provide funding for the Abernethy Bridge, but instead the Legislature directed ODOT to come up with a plan to use tolling to pay for I-205 improvements, and to report back with a “Cost to Complete” report that would tell how much this project would cost.  In 2018, the Cost to Complete report came in with a $250 million price tag for the Abernethy Bridge.  The I-205 project languished for a couple of years, and in 2021, ODOT persuaded the Legislature to adopt HB 3055, which made two significant changes.  HB 3055 authorized ODOT to dip into the $30 million per year fund designated for the Rose Quarter project to pay for I-205 (as well as the I-5 Boone Bridge), and also gave ODOT the authority to issue short-term bonds (the public sector equivalent of a payday loan).

In 2022, ODOT used the newly granted authority in HB 3055 to move forward with the Abernethy Bridge Project.  First, it told the FHWA that it could build the project entirely without toll financing—thus evading federal environmental review of tolling on the Abernethy Bridge.  Second, it took advantage of its short term borrowing authority and the HB 2017 Rose Quarter funding to start construction on the Abernethy Bridge, even though the price tag of the bridge had doubled to $500 million from the number it quoted the Legislature.  As a result of ODOT’s action, Oregon is now obligated to pay the full price of the Abernethy Bridge project, presumably through the HB 2017 $30 million appropriation and toll revenues.

It’s likely that the Abernethy Bridge project will use up all of the $30 million per year available from HB 2017, leaving little or nothing to pay for the I-5 Rose Quarter project, which meanwhile, has tripled in cost to as much as $1.45 billion—and which still faces major questions over its design.

A Blank Check for the Highway Lobby

Combining Oregon DOT’s short term borrowing authority from HB 3055 (its basically unfettered ability to get a payday loan of hundreds of millions of dollars), with a statement of “intent” that the Legislature will some day deliver whatever money is needed for the I-5 Interstate Bridge Replacement Project and the Rose Quarter freeway widening is likely all ODOT needs to get these projects started.  It will issue perhaps $500 million in such bonds, covering the initial interest and principal repayments from its current revenue and with the assumption that it will ultimately refinance the balance of the costs in balloon-mortgage fashion with the “intended” funding from some future Legislature.

And when these blank checks are filled in, the numbers will be very large.  The Interstate Bridge Replacement Project’s estimated cost has risen from a supposed maximum of $4.8 billion in 2020, to a new maximum of $7.5 billion today.  Similarly, the cost of the I-5 Rose Quarter project was sold to the 2017 Legislature as being $450 million.  The latest estimate now runs to $1.45 billion–and that figure is already out of date.  And these are just preliminary, pre-construction estimates;  if past experience is any guide, both of these projects will both end up costing significantly more once actual construction begins.

Once started, both the IBR and the Rose Quarter projects are designed in such a way that it may be impossible or prohibitively expensive to reduce their scope.  The IBR is planned as a fixed, high-level crossing that will necessitate lengthy elevated viaducts and the rebuilding of freeway interchanges (which constitute a majority of project costs).  Once the bridge is started to that design, it will be difficult to reduce its cost.  Similarly with the Rose Quarter project, where its 160 foot width dictates excavation costs and drives up the cost of proposed covers.  If ODOT starts these projects, the state will be stuck with bloated, over-sized projects it can’t change.  And that, as we have long said, is the point:  This is the classic Robert Moses strategy of “driving stakes and selling bonds” and putting the Legislature in a position where it has no ability to control what the highway building agency does.  That was tragic and stupid when Moses first did it in New York in the 1930s; it is even more tragic and stupid today, when we know with a certainty that highway widening doesn’t reduce congestion, that it destroys the fabric of urban neighborhoods, and worsens air pollution and climate destruction.

Eliminating the Sideboards

In legislative parlance, “sideboards” are conditions or limits included in legislation to prevent bad things from happening.  In 2013, the Oregon Legislature was considering spending $450 million for the I-5 bridge project, and after lengthy debate, it approved a series of such sideboards, trying to limit the cost of the project (more about that in a minute), and then also prohibiting the state treasurer from issuing any bonds for the project until after the Washington has contributed its share of the project’s costs, the federal contribution to the project was clearly committed, there had been prepared an independent financial plan for the project, and the state had conducted an “investment grade analysis of possible toll revenues.  All of those provisions are still codified in Oregon Law (Section Chapter 4 of Oregon Laws 2013).

And every one of those sideboards is eliminated, without acknowledgement.  Even the amendment’s “Staff Measure Summary” which is meant to disclose to Legislators the impact of the bill only cryptically and opaquely says:

“Repeals sections of House Bill 2800 (2013).”

Project Cost “Cap”–a legal limit from “Camelot”

We already know that a project cost cap is meaningless and unenforceable.  We already have such a cap!  It was enacted into law a decade ago and officially limited the total cost of the IBR to not more than $3.4 billion. 2013 Oregon Laws, Chapter 4, (Enrolled House Bill 2800) reads:

Conveniently, the “-2” amendments to HB 2098, without any fanfare, simply repeal this limit.  In its place, is an entirely new limit, which is worded identically–except of course that now the cost is more than twice as much.

As the Oregonian‘s “Politifact” reporters noted when they looked at the original so-called “cost cap” provisions for the Columbia River Crossing adopted by the Oregon and Washington Legislatures a decade ago, the caps are meaningless and unenforceable.

. . . if legislators greenlight the CRC, the state could ultimately owe more than $450 million on its share of the bridge. But setting a cap on the project or limiting Oregon’s share with legislative riders won’t stop that. And thanks to the agreement between Oregon and Washington to pay for the bridge jointly, if Oregon ever needs to pay more, Washington would need to join in.

PolitiFact Oregon doesn’t do prophecy. We can’t say whether the bridge will be over budget — as much as history might tempt us to offer a guess.

What we can say is that the Washington toll rule won’t matter. The Washington Legislature’s cap won’t matter.

The Legislature has no more ability to prescribe the cost of this project by edict, than it has to regulate temperature or rainfall.  Yet, the author’s of the “-2” amendments are simply performing a refrain from Camelot:

It’s true! It’s true! The crown has made it clear.

The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here:

July and August cannot be too hot.

And there’s a legal limit to the snow here

In Camelot.

The winter is forbidden till December

And exits March the second on the dot.

By order, summer lingers through September

In Camelot.

IBR officials are planning to sabotage the analysis of a moveable span options as part of the Interstate Bridge Project

The Coast Guard has said a replacement for the existing I-5 bridges would need a 178 foot navigation clearance.  The highway departments want a 116′ clearance fixed span.

The Oregon and Washington DOTs say they are going to study a “moveable span” as a “design option” but are plainly aiming to produce a costly design that just grafts a lift-span on to their current bridge design.

A moveable span would enable a lower crossing, eliminate the need for lengthy viaducts, and reduce construction costs—but ODOT is refusing to design an option that takes advantage of these features.

And the DOTs have completely ignored an immersed tube tunnel option, implying that the Coast Guard directed them to study the moveable span (which it didn’t).

IBR staff have signaled they have no intention of seriously considering the fixed span, and are engaged in malicious compliance

Our story so far:  Oregon and Washington highway departments have proposed a new, fixed span highway bridge over the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver as part of their massive $7.5 billion I-5 freeway widening project.  The bridge would have a 116 foot clearance over the river, but that’s not enough to satisfy the Coast Guard–which regulates bridge heights–and says a 178 foot navigation clearance is needed.

IBR simply chose to ignore the Coast Guard’s determination, and decided to move ahead with only the 116 foot clearance fixed span design.

The Coast Guard objected, saying this violated the terms of a 2014 memorandum of agreement between USDOT and the USCG.  (Ironically the MOA was created in the wake of the highway agency’s efforts to subvert and undercut Coast Guard review of the Columbia River Crossing, the previous iteration of this project).

Coast Guard officials wrote the FHWA and FTA to insist that they include an alternative in the project’s supplemental environmental impact statement that complies with the 178 foot height requirement.  The Coast Guard warned that the IBR should not proceed with an environmental impact statement that omitted a 178 foot clearance option:  “Including only one alternative in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) introduces risk that no permittable alternative will be evaluated in the SEIS.”

Importantly, USCG did not specify whether this should be a moveable span or a tunnel.

In response, IBR said it would look at a moveable span as a “design option” for the IBR.  That may sound like an “alternative,” but in fact when it comes to complying with environmental review requirements, it plainly is not.  A “design option” means that IBR will build exactly the same bridge it would build if it were a 116 foot fixed span, but they’d simply graft a moveable span (either a lift span or a bascule bridge) onto that very tall structure.  The IBR plan will likely look something very much like this:

A camel is a horse designed by an devious highway engineer

Simply adding a moveable span to a high-level fixed span design eliminates the key design and cost advantage of the moveable span.  Because the moveable span allows tall vessels to pass through a very high (178′ in the case of lift span, or unlimited height, in the case of a bascule) there’s no reason why the remaining fixed portions of the bridge need to be nearly as high as the IBR’s current 116′ design.  The bridge can be built at a much lower level.  Conceptually, a bascule bridge would allow a much lower and shorter bridge structure, roughly like this:

That’s hugely important because the bridge can be much cheaper:  The current high IBR design requires half mile long elevated viaducts on both the North and South ends of the bridge in order to get the I-5 roadway from ground level in Vancouver up to the 150 height of the bridge roadway (the road level of the bridge is about 35′ to 40′ feet above the bottom of the double-deck bridge structure).  Lowering the height of the bridge makes it much cheaper to build; it also eliminates the need to rebuild intersections North and South of the river to reach up to the new higher bridge.  In addition, the lift span will have different and mostly fewer environmental impacts.  Because it will be less tall, it will be less steep, meaning trucks can get over it without slowing (which is a hazard to other traffic), plus all vehicles will burn less fuel (and create less pollution) on a shorter, less steep bridge.

It’s clear, however, that IBR officials have no intention of looking at using the lift span to reduce costs or minimize environmental impacts.  Greg Johnson, the IBR administrator, has fully indicated his intent to sabotage the moveable span design.  It is highly likely that they will specify a moveable span that is impractical and excessively expensive.  Greg Johnson telegraphed as much in his comments to the Columbian

The missing tunnel option

Press accounts, fueled by IBR statements, create the false impression that it was the Coast Guard that insisted on the inclusion of a moveable span option.  Oregon Public Broadcasting reported:

Planners in charge of the new, multibillion-dollar overhaul have recently been told by federal regulators they must include plans for “moveable span” on the bridge. Greg Johnson, who is leading the team of planners, said federal regulators made the order in late February.

The Vancouver Columbian reported:

The “movable span” option, which came at the request of the Coast Guard and federal government, will be explored in addition to the program’s original plan of a fixed-span bridge with 116 feet of vertical clearance.

In fact, the Coast Guard made no recommendation as to the kind of option that the project should study.  Either a moveable span or a tunnel under the river could satisfy the Coast Guard’s 178 foot height requirement.  Here’s what the Coast Guard letter, from Rear Admiral M. W. Bouboulis (not included in any press accounts) actually says:

I recommend that the Notice to Supplement clearly state the alternatives to be evaluated in the SEIS to include the no build alternative, the locally preferred alternative (116-foot vertical clearance), and an alternative that meets the 178-foot vertical clearance established in the PNCD. This will ensure that an alternative that meets the initially identified needs of navigation is evaluated in the SEIS and could be adopted by the Coast Guard.

(emphasis added)

This wasn’t the Coast Guard asking for something new in February, 2023–it was actually the Coast Guard repeating pretty much exactly what it asked for in its Preliminary Navigation Clearance Decision in June of 2022.  The Coast Guard made it clear that a 116 foot bridge interfered with river navigation:

Our PNCD concluded that the current proposed bridge with 116 feet VNC [vertical navigation clearance], as depicted in the NOPN [Navigation Only Public Notice], would create an unreasonable obstruction to navigation for vessels with a VNC greater than 116 feet and in fact would completely obstruct navigation for such vessels for the service life of the bridge which is approximately 100 years or longer.

B.J. Harris, US Coast Guard, to FHWA, June 17, 2022, emphasis added.

In response to the Bouboulis letter,  IBR (through the FHWA and FTA) replied that it would study a moveable span.  This was IBR’s decision, not Coast Guard’s decision.

What ends up on the cutting room floor, here, is the possibility of an immersed tube tunnel, a technology that is widely used around the word, and which would provide unlimited vertical (and horizontal) navigation clearance.  The immersed tunnel would also remove the visual blight and noise pollution from downtown Vancouver and its rapidly redeveloping waterfront.  To hear the IBR tell it, the reason the immersed tube tunnel isn’t being considered is because the Coast Guard directed them to study a moveable span.  That’s simply untrue.  In its June 2022 preliminary determination of navigation clearance, the Coast Guard specifically identified the tunnel option as one way to comply with its navigation requirements.  It is IBR, not the Coast Guard, that is declining to take a hard look at the immersed tube tunnel.  This seems likely to be a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, because the immersed tube tunnel would have very different (and much reduced) environmental impacts than the bridge options.

A “Design Option” not an “Alternative”

There’s one other seemingly minor wrinkle in the IBR’s latest gambit.  They’re talking about including the moveable span as a “design option.”  While that might sound like an “alternative” to the layman, it actually has important legal and practical implications.  “Design option” means they’ll look at the moveable span not as a full fledged separate alternative, but rather as just simply one feature grafted on to the existing IBR design.  As noted above, this means we’ll get something that looks almost exactly like the IBR 116′ clearance bridge with a bascule or lift-span “cut and pasted” on it.
The reason for calling it a “design option” rather than an alternative is to escape a requirement that the highway department’s fully evaluate the environmental and other impacts of the moveable span design.  A moveable span would be expected to have very different cost, traffic, and environmental impacts than IBR’s proposed high fixed span.  Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) the two state highway departments should fully flesh out this alternative, and evaluate those differing impacts.  Treating the moveable span as a design option is a transparent ruse to avoid NEPA scrutiny.  This could turn out to be a fatal legal error by the project:  NEPA is clear that sponsoring agencies have to give a “hard look” to reasonable alternatives, something this “design option” approach is designed to avoid.

Coast Guard Letter, February 8, 2023

ODOT grabs a billion dollars that could be used for bikes, pedestrians and transit, and allocates it to pay highway bills.

Oregon highways are out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the cost of fixing them can–and should–be paid for out of the State Highway Fund. But instead, ODOT plans to take more than a billion dollars in future federal grant money over the next decade or more, and use it to pay off this highway liability.

What this strategy does is to take money that could be used for a wide variety of different transportation needs and use it only to bail out the State Highway Fund.

By taking this liability out of the State Highway Fund, ODOT can then claim it has plenty of funds for highway expansions. This shell game uses the ADA liability as cover to use flexible federal funds, in essence, to build more highway capacity.

Oregon’s constitution contains a retrograde provision that has been interpreted to require that moneys from gas taxes be used only to build roads, based on a fallacious argument that we have a “user pays” transportation system. The state highway departmetn, ODOT, routinely inovkes that constitutional argument when asked by the public to spend more on things like transit, pedestrian improvements or cycling. We can’t because that money can’t be used for anything other than building roads, they say. As a result, the truly innovative and “multi-modal” uses of funds in Oregon have been paid for disproportionately from federal funds, which are much more flexible. Not only does the Oregon constitutional limit not apply to federal funds, but federal law explicitly allows states to transfer funds among a variety of different categories. You’d think that flexible federal funds would be a key way to diversify our transportation portfolio. But ODOT has hit on a new gimmick to grab these federal funds and use them to bail out the struggling State Highway Fund.

It’s a complex story, and it involves changing the “color of money.”

For decades, the Americans with Disabilities Act has required private businesses and public agencies to provide accommodations for persons with disabilities. For nearly all of that time, the Oregon Department of Transportation has largely flouted that requirement, seldom providing sidewalks and ramps on state highways. As a result, disability advocates hauled them into court, and In 2020 reached a billion dollar settlement, in which ODOT agreed to make the necessary investments to bring highways into compliance with this long-established federal law.

Let’s just talk for a moment about what people in transportation finance call “the color of money.” You may think that all money is green, but in the transportation world, there are different kinds of money, with different strings attached. Funds raised by the state, for example, from the gasoline tax, are governed according to the dictates of state law, and importantly, constitutional restrictions.

ODOT loves to tell advocates it would gladly do more to help promote transit, but its hands are tied by the state constitution: It simply has no choice but to spend these dollars in the roadway.

There’s another color of money in the transportation world, though, “federal money.” Federal money is not governed by the state constitutional restrictions on state taxes. Federal money can be used for a wide variety of purposes, and the federal law gives the state wide flexibility to reallocate money among different categories. It doesn’t all have to be spent on highways.

Consequently, that’s why, when it comes to how we should use federal funds, there’s a lot more debate. In 2022, the Oregon Transportation Commission had a lengthy debate about how to allocate more than $400 million in federal funds coming to the state under the IIJA. Transportation advocates around the state came up with an alternate scenario to allocate about $130 million to local transportation projects. The OTC largely rejected this path.

Transportation Commission makes final decision on $412 million in federal funds

When it comes to getting a different allocation of these highly flexible federal funds, advocates are largely fighting for crumbs—and getting very little.

And ODOT is largely pre-empting any future option to use these funds differently by proposing to use them to repay a huge pile of debt. By pledging to use these federal grants to pay back debt, it will be impossible to use them for other purposes.

So let’s go back to ODOT’s ADA settlement: Under the terms of the deal, ODOT needs to bring its highways into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act by spending $1 billion. To be clear, this is a cost of the highway system—these ODOT roads don’t comply with ADA requirements. This spending is plainly a liability and a responsibility of the highway system. There’s no question that it can constitutionally be paid for with state gas tax revenues. But instead of paying for this cost with those monies, ODOT instead is planning to pay these costs by diverting flexible federal funding for the next decade, to the tune of a billion dollars, to pay these costs.  It will issue $600 million in “GARVEE” bonds (grant anticipation revenue bonds), and then use future federal funds to pay the debt service.

In essence, this reduces the amount of money potentially available for alternative transportation investments, unfettered by the state constitutional limits, by a billion dollars. It amounts to tying up a big chunk of potential revenue.

And what’s worse, ODOT is planning to bond against these federal revenues, spending the money now, and paying it back, with interest, over the next decade or more. So that means a substantial portion of those federal revenues are spent on interest payments, rather than on transportation projects.  At 5 percent interest, $600 million in bonds paid back over 15 years would mean that the state would pay about a quarter of a billion dollars in interest.  In the end, the State Highway Fund would be bailed out by more than $1 billion, and there would be that much less flexible federal funding for other projects around the state.

As we’ve said, when it comes to transportation finance, ODOT is the master of three-card monte: It’s ability to move dollars among categories–to change the color of money–systematically advantages its policy priorities (chiefly building more and wider highways) and leaves advocates of other policies fighting over crumbs.

By using flexible federal funds to pay the costs of the state highway system—plus a hefty pile of interest—ODOT is foreclosing the possibility that future decision-makers will have any ability to use these funds for alternatives in the future. It’s literally the priorities of the past dictating the choices of the future. If ODOT paid its ADA liability out of the State Highway Fund, as it legally can, and arguably should, it would have even less money to spend on road expansion projects.

Editor’s Note:  For the past two year’s the Federal Highway Administration has been investigating a civil rights complaint brought against the proposed I-45 freeway expansion project in Houston.  This week, FHWA and TxDOT signed an agreement to resolve this complaint.  

Urban freeways have been engines of segregation and neighborhood destruction for decades, a fact that even highway builders are now acknowledging.  You might think that civil rights laws might provide some protection against a repetition of the devastating consequences of such projects, but this case shows that federal and state highway builders aren’t about to make any serious changes to their plans to either right historical wrongs or avoid making them worse.  Officials will give lip service to the egregiousness of past mistakes, but then blithely repeat them.

Kevin DeGood of the Center for American Progress has taken a close look at the agreement, and published his analysis as a series of tweets.  His analysis deserves a wider audience, and with his permission, we’re repeating it here.  The twitter original is available here.

1/ FHWA and TxDOT have signed a Voluntary Resolution Agreement (VRA), which allows TxDOT to build the massive $10 BILLION I-45 North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP). It’s not good. Let’s take a look.

2/ Numerous complaints against the NHHIP project argued the design violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Why? Because the expansion will cause massive displacements — especially of low-income residents in communities of color:

3/ The disparate impacts from the NHHIP are not limited to affordable housing loss. The Air Alliance complaint states the project would degrade air quality in “predominantly lower-income communities of color…” (Note: MSATs are mobile source air toxics)

4/ I-45 will also supercharge sprawl. The transportation improvement program (TIP) for 2021-2024 shows how the exurban growth machine leverages highway expansions like I-45. This $386M for highway widening in Montgomery County is a small sample of the region total.

5/ This is FHWA’s quick summary of the Voluntary Resolution Agreement (VRA). Let’s dig in a little, starting with “Highway ‘Footprint’ Reduction.” Wow, that sounds promising. But what has TxDOT actually promised to do…?

6/ Short answer: Nothing. TxDOT has only committed to…”evaluating reasonable opportunities to reduce the project footprint…” but ONLY if they would “not compromise the integrity and functionality of the purpose and need…” Welp.

7/ Ok, what about “Mitigating displacements”? Since TxDOT isn’t reducing the project footprint, the displacement totals will not change. Instead, TxDOT will provide $30M for affordable housing. But TxDOT already agreed to $27M in the ROD [Record of Decision]! The $3M is an…11% increase.

8/ Ok, what about “Air Quality Mitigation“? TxDOT has agreed to install air quality monitors. Be still my heart. Billions of additional VMT producing emissions and PM 2.5 and residents will get a few monitors and some data buried on TxDOT’s website.

9/ Ok, what about “Structural Highway Caps“? Again, FHWA is bragging about something that TxDOT already agreed to. TxDOT is set to build 4 caps. But, it’s up to a third party to “fund the design, construction, operations and maintenance of amenities…” Piece of cake!

10/ The NHHIP will result in:
– More VMT, GHG emissions, & auto dependence
– Worse air quality
– Huge residential displacements
– Huge business displacements
– More sprawl
– More wetlands loss
The VRA has not meaningfully changed the project design or its negative impacts.

The “bridge replacement” part of the Interstate Bridge Replacement only costs $500 million, according to new project documents

So why is the overall project budget $7.5 billion?

Short answer:  This is really a massive freeway-widening project, spanning five miles and seven intersections, not a “bridge replacement”

Longer (and taller) answer:  The plan to build half-mile long elevated viaducts on both sides of the river, and the need to have interchanges raised high into the air make the project vastly more complex and expensive.

In November of 2022, the Interstate Bridge Replacement team (a collaboration of the Oregon and Washington highway departments), released a document called the “River Crossing Option Comparison” sketching out the advantages and disadvantages of several different alternatives crossing the Columbia River.  The alternatives examined included tunnels under the river, and a series of bridge designs—two different moveable span bridges, and two fixed spans, a high level and and mid-level (116 foot clearance crossing.)

Here’s the bottom line of the report—buried away on page 50 of a 68-page PDF file—the IBR’s preferred design, a mid-level fixed span, is supposed to cost $500 million.

That’s a fascinating number, because in December, the IBR team released another document, a long-awaited financial plan describing the total cost of the project.  It told a joint committee of legislators from Oregon and Washington that the project’s budget had increased from a maximum of $4.8 billion (estimated in 2020) to a new “maximum” of $7.5 billion (although the two agencies still maintain that they’re trying to bring it in for a mere $6 billion).

All this raises a fascinating question:  Why does this project cost $7.5 billion when the price tag for actually replacing the bridge is only $500 million?

Most of the project cost is highway widening, not the bridge

More recently, the project has offered a few additional details, summarized in the graphic below.  As we’ve noted at City Observatory, the name “bridge replacement project” is clearly misleading.  The IBR is really a five-mile long freeway widening project that requires rebuilding seven closely spaced interchanges.  According to the IBR, the cost of the four major segments of the project is about 1 to $1.5 billion each for the Oregon and Washington interchanges and highway widenings (segments A and D), about 1.3 to $2 billion for the transit portion of the project, and about 1.6 to 2.5 billion for the bridge and approaches (segment C).

At between $2 and $3 billion, it’s clear that the interchange rebuilding and roadway widening is more expensive than the river crossing. And an earlier expert review of the Columbia River Crossing version of this same project, commissioned by the two state highway departments and the behest of the then Governors, recommended strongly that the project eliminate one or more interchanges, to save cost, improve safety and performance, and enable a better bridge design.  By rebuilding these too closely spaced interchanges, the panel warned, the DOTs were repeating–at enormous cost–a decades old design error..

A high bridge requires long, steep approaches

The IBR budget breakdown unhelpfully combines the cost of the “bridge” and its “approaches.”  As this illustration shows, what IBR calls the combined “bridge and approaches”—shown in red—extend for about a half a mile on either side of the river:  to Evergreen Boulevard (more than half a mile north of the riverbank on the Vancouver side of the river, and almost all the way across Hayden Island (a bit less than half a mile) on the Oregon side of the river.

We know from the “River Crossing Options” report that the actual bridge itself—that is the portion between the north and south river banks—would cost approximately $500 million to build.  What the IBR doesn’t talk about is the “approaches” which are actually elevated viaducts that have to reach 100 feet or more into the air in order to connect to the high level crossing.  These are vastly higher (and wider) than the existing bridge approaches, which are fully at grade on the Oregon and Washington sides of the river with the current low-level lift bridge.

The mile of elevated freeway that IBR plans to build to connect its high level bridge to the existing freeway at either end of the red-shaded area is what is driving the cost of this segment of the project. If, as IBR says, the bridge structure costs $500 million, this means that most of the cost of this part of the project—as much as $1.5 to $2.0 billion—are the lengthy, elevated approaches.  What IBR has failed to do is consider how much less expensive the approaches could be if it chose one of the alternate bridge designs (either a moveable span or immersed tube tunnel).  Either of these designs would allow approaches to be built mostly or entirely at grade, eliminating the expense and environmental impact of elevated viaducts.  The lower level would also greatly simplify and reduce the expense of the SR 14 interchange, which currently involves convoluted spiral ramps with grades of 6 or 7 percent.

It’s also worth noting that the IBR project hasn’t itemized the cost of demolishing the existing I-5 bridges.  Because these structures cross over sensitive river habitat, and because the bridges themselves have toxic lead paint and other environmental contaminants, the cost of bridge removal could be enormous.

Engineers gone wild, said then-Congressman DeFazio

Clearly, what’s going on here is that highway engineers at ODOT and WSDOT see this project as their opportunity to build the project of their dreams.  Not just a giant bridge, but massive new interchanges, wider freeway lanes, and if people insist, a short light-rail extension.  The bigger, the better.  The grandiose and costly bias of the state highway departments has been long known to key local leaders.  Former Congressman Peter DeFazio (until last year, Chair of the House Infrastructure Committee), in a characteristically frank admission said:

“I kept on telling the project to keep the costs down, don’t build a gold-plated project,” a clearly frustrated DeFazio said. “How can you have a $4 billion project? They let the engineers loose, told them to solve all the region’s infrastructure problems in one fell swoop… They need to get it all straight and come up with a viable project, a viable financing plan that can withstand a vigorous review.”
(Manning, Jeff. “Columbia River Crossing could be a casualty of the federal budget crunch”, The Oregonian, August 14, 2011).

Later, DeFazio told Oregon Public Broadcasting:

“I said, how can it cost three or four billion bucks to go across the Columbia River?  . . . The Columbia River Crossing problem was thrown out to engineers, it wasn’t overseen: they said solve all the problems in this twelve-mile corridor and they did it in a big engineering way, and not in an appropriate way.”
“Think Out Loud,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, August 18, 2011.

At long last, there are some signs that the problems with their super-sized design are dawning on IBR staff.  Project director Greg Johnson recently let slip that IBR is now looking at a “single-level” design—something they ruled out more than a decade ago.  This may mean the states are actually going to consider a lower level crossing. IBR has also conducted a “Cost Estimate Validation Process” or CEVP—which they’ve declined to reveal to the public.  This engineering review likely highlights the cost and risk of the project’s current bloated design.

There’s no reason a $500 million bridge replacement should cost $7.5 billion.  If this project were right-sized—simply replacing the bridge structure, and maintaining a low-level crossing that could connect to existing approaches, and eliminate the need to rebuild seven different intersections and widen miles of freeway, the cost could be brought down substantially.

Highway advocates deny or minimize the science of induced travel

Induced travel is a well established scientific fact:  any increase in roadway capacity in a metropolitan area is likely to produce a proportional increase in vehicle miles traveled

Highway advocates like to pretend that more capacity improves mobility, but at best this is a short lived illusion.  More mobility generates more travel, sprawl and costs

In theory, highway planners could accurately model induced travel; but the fact is they ignore, deny or systematically under-estimate induced travel effects.  Models are wielded as proprietary and technocratic weapons to sell highway expansions.

Induced travel, or as its otherwise known, the fundamental law of road congestion, is a particularly inconvenient fact for highway boosters.  A growing body of evidence confirms what has been observed for decades:  adding more un-priced roadway capacity in urban settings simply generates more and longer trips, and does nothing to eliminate congestion.  Day by day, the popular media are starting to communicate this seemingly counter-intuitive fact to the public.

Highway boosters either simply ignore the entire concept of induced demand, or pretend that it doesn’t exist.  A new chapter in this effort to avoid this inconvenient fact comes from  Arizona State University Professor Steven Polzin, writing at Planetizen.

Polzin isn’t a complete induced travel denier; he’s more an induced travel apologist and minimizer.  It may be a real thing—or might have been in the past, he assures us—but it’s not a big deal and is now adequately being thought about by state highway departments and can safely be ignored.

Induced travel is scientific fact

Polzin derides induced demand as “a popular concept among urbanists” and argues that it’s given too much publicity in the media, by the likes of the New York Times.

But induced travel is not simply a “popular concept,” it’s a well researched scientific fact.  The best available evidence from a series of studies, shows that there’s essentially a unit elasticity of travel with respect to the provision of additional highway capacity.  A whole series of studies supports this estimate, some of which are shown here.

Duranton, Gilles, and Matthew A. Turner. 2011. “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities.” American Economic Review, 101 (6): 2616-52.

Hymel, Kent, 2019. “If you build it, they will drive: Measuring induced demand for vehicle travel in urban areas,” Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 57-66.

Hsu, Wen-Tai & Zhang, Hongliang, 2014. “The fundamental law of highway congestion revisited: Evidence from national expressways in Japan,” Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 65-76.

Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López, Ilias Pasidis, Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, Congestion in highways when tolls and railroads matter: evidence from European cities, Journal of Economic Geography, Volume 22, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 931–960,

It’s odd that Polzin, a university professor, provides only a list of popular media articles (which he disbelieves) and provides not  not a single footnote or reference to a peer-reviewed academic study to dispute the notion of induced travel.

Purported mobility gains are an illusion

Sure there may be some induced travel, Polzin argues, but don’t overlook the benefits of greater mobility.  This misses the point that mobility (i.e. driving more and further) is evidence of induced travel, not a refutation.  And mobility tends to be short-lived and costly. Our friend and colleague, Todd Litman of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute has a compelling rebuttal to Polzin on this point at Planetizen.

Polzin pleads with us to recognize the “mobility” benefits that come from increased highway capacity.  He misses two things here:  first, the key insight from the research on induced travel is that the mobility gains are at best a temporary illusion.  Somewhat faster moving traffic prompts more trip taking and longer trips, which quickly erodes any mobility gains.  And greater mobility simply prompts greater decentralization and sprawl, so even in places where traffic moves faster, everyone has to travel farther—and that comes at a real social, environmental and economic cost.

In effect, Polzin says that traffic growth is just due to population growth, and is inevitable, and good.  But he completely ignores the clear cross-sectional evidence from US metropolitan areas:  Metro areas with fewer lane miles of roads have shorter travel distances.  And far from being economically constrained, metro areas with less roadway capacity sprawl less, reducing public sector infrastructure costs, and creating a “green dividend” for their residents, who don’t have to drive as far.  The average resident of Portland drives about half as far every day as the average resident of Houston.  And, as we’ve documented at City Observatory, people who live in cities where people drive less are happier with their transportation systems.

Predict and provide = Prevaricate and pave

For decades, state highway departments have used their control over opaque and technocratic travel demand models to build a case for ever more highway capacity. Their “predict and provide” approach is the bureaucratic manifestation of induced travel.  Polzin never quite acknowledges this history, but instead suggests that we should simply trust highway planners to build new  traffic models that account for induced demand.

Much of the reporting on induced demand gives the impression that the transportation planning community is oblivious to this phenomenon or is comprised of road-building zealots. Newer activity-based transportation models are designed such that activity generation (trip generation) is sensitive to travel times. Consequently, improvements in travel speed will contribute to predictions of increased trip-making and travel distance. Even without the newest models, scenario testing and careful analysis of changes in demographics, mode choices, and flow volumes and patterns can give insight into the nature of demand on new facilities.

In theory, state highway departments could build models that accurately reflect induced travel.  But the simple fact is that they don’t.  To the contrary, a recent published article on the practice of state highway travel forecasting looked at this specific issue, and found just the opposite:  Induced travel effects are routinely ignored by state highway departments, and induced travel is generally introduced into highway environmental assessments only at the behest of public critics.  Those few state highway efforts that do consider induced demand, wildly understate likely effects.  Highway departments continue to produce models that exaggerate future travel demand growth even in the face of demonstrable capacity constraints, as Norm Marshall puts it “forecasting the impossible.”  And some, like Oregon, simply deny that induced travel is real, and prohibit their modelers from using scientifically based tools that estimate induced travel.

In a similar vein, Polzin solemnly intones that future transportation projects ought to be based on sound projections of future.

Roadway investments in new capacity should be based on up-to-date and sound demand estimates. They can’t just fulfill out-of-date plans or serve as ill-advised opportunities to create jobs or garner state and federal resources for local use. They should not use twentieth-century per capita travel growth rates or chamber of commerce-inspired population growth assumption

But there’s precious little evidence that state highway departments do anything of the sort.  They routinely plan for highway capacity expansions on roads where traffic is declining.  The Oregon Department of Transportation proposes expanding capacity at the Rose Quarter at a cost of $1.45 billion, even though traffic levels on that particular roadway have been declining for 25 years.  Cincinnati’s Brent Spence Bridge is slated for a massive $3.5 billion expansion, even though its traffic has been flat for more than a decade.  And other state highway departments routinely produce “hockey stick” traffic forecasts that are simply never realized.

The underlying problem that highway advocates fail to acknowledge is that road users will typically only use added highway capacity only if they don’t have to pay for it.    In the very limited instances in which drivers are asked to pay for even a fraction of the cost of providing increased road capacity, demand disappears.  The evidence from tolled roadways like Louisville’s I-65 bridge is that most people are unwilling to pay even a small fraction of the cost of freeway widening projects that would save them travel time.  That shows that the only reason people drive on expanded roadways is that someone else pays for them.  That’s pretty much the definition of induced travel.

Polzin’s piece is subtitled: “Induced demand is a popular concept among urbanists, but does its pervasiveness obscure the true costs of mobility?” This is a classic example of Betteridge’s law of headlines, the adage that states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”  Induces travel is real, and at this point, only highway advocates, and their apologists, like Polzin, are in any doubt about what this means.

Here are our 16 top reasons Oregon and Washington need to re-think the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement Project.  The bloated size of the project and its $7.5 billion cost, and the availability of better alternatives, like a bascule bridge, call for rethinking this project, now.

1. It’s not a bridge, it’s a freeway widening and interchange rebuilding project.  Contrary to the project’s name, it’s not merely a “bridge replacement.”  The bulk of the cost is widening 5 miles of freeway and rebuilding 7 major interchanges.  IBR’s own “River Crossing Options” study says the proposed IBR bridge only costs $500 million.
   

   

2. The budget is out of control: $7.5 billion.  In 2020, the IBR was projected to cost a maximum of $4.8 billion. The price tag for the project jumped 54 percent in December, 2022.  The total cost is now estimated at $7.5 billion, but ODOT has a long history of having its major projects end up costing twice as much as budgeted.  Contrary to claims made by the IBR, recent construction cost inflation accounts for only $300 million of the more than $2.5 billion cost increase since 2020.
3. A tunnel or bascule bridge would be vastly cheaper, avoiding the need to widen the freeway and rebuild intersections. IBR’s design will allow only 116 feet of navigation clearance, and IBR has refused to seriously consider either an immersed tube tunnel or lower level bascule bridge, both of which would eliminate most or all bridge lifts, and eliminate the need to rebuild intersections on I-5. The I-95 Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington DC is recently constructed bascule, and carries twice as much traffic as the I-5 bridges.
4. Its really a 12-lane wide freeway.  The IBR likes to describe the project as just adding “auxiliary lanes” to I-5, but a close look at its actual plans shows it will build a 164-foot wide highway bridge–enough for as many as 12 lanes.  Once built, ODOT and WSDOT can easily re-stripe this very wide structure as a 12-lane roadway.
   
5. ODOT is ignoring the Coast Guard’s direction.  The Coast Guard, which has authority to regulate bridge height–says that IBR’s bridge needs to have a 178-foot clearance over the Columbia River.  With the CRC, the failure to follow Coast Guard guidance resulted in a costly year-long delay as the project was redesigned.
6. ODOT’s high, fixed span crossing creates dangerous and expensive elevated roadways and steep on-and-off ramps. The IBR would have a main span with a grade of 4 percent, higher than almost every interstate bridge in the US, and ramps would have 6-7 percent grades.  The steep grades will slow trucks and create dangerous conditions in winter weather.
7. Planned tolls of up to $5.69 each way will permanently reduce traffic to less than 90,000 vehicles per day (from 135K today).  IBR has refused to release its proposed toll rates.  Documents obtained by public records request show IBR is looking at tolls as high as $5.69 each way at the peak hour.  According to the Investment Grade Analysis performed for the Columbia River Crossing in 2013, even $3 tolls would permanently reduce traffic on I-5 to less than 90,000 vehicles per day–dramatically below its current traffic level of 135,000.
   
8. High IBR tolls would produce gridlock on I-205.  The IBR project plans to toll the new I-5 bridge, but not the parallel I-205 Glen Jackson Bridge.  The Investment Grade Analysis prepared for the Columbia River Crossing in 2013 concluded that this would divert tens of thousands of vehicles to I-205, producing gridlock on the I-205 bridge.
   
9. ODOT has ignored its own expert panel which recommended breaking the project into three independent phases.  In 2010, Governors Kulongoski and Gregoire appointed a panel of national bridge and highway experts to review the Columbia River Crossing.  They recommended that the project be broken into three separate, independent phases, to minimize financial risk.  They also recommended eliminating one or more interchanges to improve traffic flow, reduce cost and simplify bridge design.
   
10. IBR traffic projections have been proven dramatically wrong:  They grossly over-estimate future traffic levels on the existing bridge, which is capacity constrained.  The CRC FEIS predicted I-5 traffic growth of 1.3 percent per year; actual growth was 0.3 percent per year through 2019. They also fail to accurately predict future traffic levels.  The independent Investment Grade Analysis in 2013 showed that the IBR forecasts overstated future I-5 traffic levels by about 80,000 vehicles per day, leading to the design of a grossly over-sized project.
    
11. IBR staff altered the output of Metro’s traffic models, and increased predicted peak hour traffic on the existing I-5 bridge above that predicted by the Metro model, and in excess of the actual physical capacity of the bridge.  This so-called “post-processing“–which isn’t documented according to ODOT’s own analysis procedures–inflated no-build traffic volume artificially worsened predicted future congestion, and created a false baseline for assessing the need for and impacts of the proposed bridge widening.
12. The IBR project mostly benefits Washington residents.  According to Census data produced by IBR, approximately 80 percent of daily commuters across the Columbia River are Washington residents.  According to a license plate survey conducted for the two states, twice as many Washington cars use the I-5 bridge as do Oregon cars.  Yet Oregon will have to pay just as much as Washington state, plus pay for the entire cost of the $1.45 billion Rose Quarter project (which is heavily used by Washington commuters).
    
13. IBR has falsely portrayed the income, race and ethnicity of typical bridge users.  The median peak hour drive-alone commuter from Clark County Washington to jobs in Oregon has a household income of $106,000.  About 86 percent of these commuters are non-Hispanic whites.  These commuters are whiter and have higher incomes that the rest of the Portland metropolitan area, and are half as likely to be people of color as the region’s population.
    
14. IBR has no meaningful cost controls.  ODOT & WSDOT claimed in legislative testimony in December 2022 that future cost escalation would be managed using a “Cost Estimate Validation Process (CEVP)” that they say that had already completed.  A public records request showed that no documentation existed for the CEVP.
    
15. IBR has put off doing an “Investment Grade Analysis” which will be required for federal TIFIA loans andtoll bonds.  The investment grade analysis done for the CRC showed that traffic would be dramatically lower, and tolls would have to be dramatically higher than the figures ODOT and WSDOT used to sell the CRC.
    
16. A massive IBR will be a visual blight on Vancouver’s revitalized waterfront, and a massive viaduct across Hayden Island.  The elevated approaches required by IBR’s 116 foot high fixed span are the equivalent of three Marquam Bridges side by side as they cross the waterfront in downtown Vancouver. Seattle just spent several billion dollars to remove a similar waterfront eyesore.
    

What we should do instead.

1.  Refocus the project on replacing the bridge, not widening the freeway
2. Re-appraise low cost options to a high, fixed span  (a bascule bridge or immersed tube tunnel) that could use existing approaches and eliminate the expense of rebuilding interchanges and creating massive elevated viaducts.
3. Right-size the bridge’s capacity to reflect the traffic levels that can be expected with tolling

Note:  This commentary has been updated to include additional images and links.

The Interstate Bridge Project has released—after years of delay—computer graphic renderings showing possible designs for a new I-5 bridge between Vancouver and Portland.  But what they show is a project in real trouble.  And they also conceal significant flaws, including a likely violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.  Here’s what they really show:

• IBR is on the verge of junking the “double-decker” design its pursued for years.
• It is reviving a single decker design that will be 100 feet wider than the “locally preferred alternative” it got approved  a year ago.
• The single deck design is an admission that critics were right about the IBR design having excessively steep grades.
• The single deck design has significant environmental impacts that haven’t been addressed in the current review process; The two states ruled out a single deck design 15 years ago because it had greater impacts on the river and adjacent property.
• IBR’s renderings are carefully edited to conceal the true scale of the bridge, and hide impacts on downtown Vancouver and Hayden Island.
• IBR has blocked public access to the 3D models used to produce these renderings, and refused to produce the “CEVP” document that addressed the problems with the excessive grades due to the double-deck design.
• The fact the IBR is totally changing the bridge design shows there’s no obstacle to making major changes to this project at this point.

The actual appearance of the proposed $7.5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement project has been a carefully guarded secret. IBR has finally produced renderings of what the bridge might look like, and they conceal more than they reveal.  All of the renderings are shown from a distant vantage point—probably a mile or so away from the actual bridge—making it look tiny.  And the renderings don’t show how much larger the proposed new bridges are than the existing bridge.  The renderings are also carefully crafted so you can’t tell how tall the bridge will be in relation to the buildings in downtown Vancouver (it will be taller than most of them), nor does it show a lengthy elevated viaduct that will tower over most of Hayden Island. What the renderings do show is that IBR is now almost fully committed to a single-level bridge design.  Whereas prior renderings never showed a single-level bridge, five of the six designs presented on the IBR website are single-level bridges, and only one is the double-decker design the IBR has been pushing for more than a decade.

And none of these renderings show the actual width of either the single- or double-deck versions.  Other ODOT documents—not included with the renderings—show the singe-deck designs will be more than 270 feet wide—nearly as wide as a football field is long.  We know that IBR has developed a sophisticated 3D model—a “digital twin” of the project.  IBR consultants bragged about the state-of-the-art detail of the model in a presentation to a professional group in Seattle earlier this year, but said they couldn’t share the illustrations, because:

 “There is a very detailed 3D model. I was going to try and show it . . . It’s very, very, it’s kept under wraps quite a bit, and I think it’s because of their experience with the first round, trying to tread carefully.” 

We filed a public records request with WSDOT and in response, they claimed that the only “model” was a rendering released in January 20, 2022, and that they are ignorant of this work—even though contractor WSP and software provider Bentley prominently tout this “digital twin” work for IBR on their websites.  And obviously, IBR had this 3D model in place to produce the renderings it released on May 25.  It’s plain that ODOT and WSDOT don’t want people to see what they are planning to build.

Junking the double decker design

What these new renderings signify is  that the Oregon and Washington DOTs are junking the double-decker design they’ve been pushing for the Interstate Bridge Replacement for more than a decade, and instead are planning a much wider single-level bridge.

Since 2008, ODOT and WSDOT have only been looking at a pair of double-decker bridges to replace the existing I-5 crossing.  Each of these bridges would be about 90 feet wide, with room for six highway lanes on the top deck of each bridge, and provision for light rail, bikes and pedestrians on lower levels.

As part of the project’s draft environmental impact statement, the two highway departments considered, and rejected, a single-level design, because it would have had greater impacts on the river (more piers in the river, more cover over the river, and greater visual impacts).  Only the double-decker design was advanced to the Final Environmental Impact Statement, adopted in 2011.

Now, suddenly, IBR is pushing a slew of single-level designs.  We say “suddenly” because IBR made no mention of a single level option until February of 2023—almost a year after it asked all of its local partners to sign off on a “Modified Locally Preferred Alternative” that consisted solely of the double decker bridge.

As we wrote in February, this sudden change of heart vindicates one of the key criticisms of the IBR design—that its high fixed span necessitates very steep grades, both for the mainline highway section, and especially for the bridge’s off-ramps.  The grade for the mainline would be as much as 3.99 percent—well in excess of the DOT’s own guidelines for freeway grades, and among the steepest interstate bridges in the nation.  The grades on on- and off-ramps would be even higher, as much as 6-7 percent.  Notably, each of the single-level designs allow the roadway to be set much closer to the river, enabling shorter structures and shallower grades.

The key factors increasing the grades of the highway section of the project is the combination of its high river clearance (the IBR design calls for a 116′ navigation clearance underneath the bridge), and the proposed double-decker design (with the top highway deck being elevated about 35 feet above the lower transit/active transportation deck).

A Bridge Too Steep and the Secret CEVP Report

What prompted the sudden inclusion of the single deck design?  As we wrote in February, the key intervening event was a project evaluation called the “Cost Estimate Validation Process” or CEVP, which is designed to identify and assess risks to project costs and completion. It seems highly likely that this review identified the steep grades on the bridge and approaches as a cost, schedule and approval risk.  That’s almost undoubtedly what prompted the sudden interest in the single-deck design, after years of exclusion.  We say “almost undoubtedly” because IBR has refused to release the CEVP analysis.  When we first asked, in December 2022 for the CEVP, WSDOT claimed that “no such document exists.”  Subsequently it has released only a cursory and uninformative one-page summary of the CEVP, even though it has subsequently reported that the CEVP consisted of creating a “risk register” that identified more than 200 risks.

A QRA [quantitative risk assessment] was performed for the IBR program based on CEVP methodology. The objectives of the QRA were to provide independent review of program cost and schedule estimates and to quantify the uncertainty and risk associated with those estimates. A risk assessment workshop was held October  10 to 14, 2022, and was attended by IBR program team members, partners, and subject matter experts (SMEs) from WSDOT, ODOT, local agency partners, and industry. A risk register was developed for the program; the register identified specific risks (threats and opportunities) to the program cost and schedule. A total of 201 risks were identified, of which 121 were determined to be significant. Risks were characterized and quantified by consensus (i.e., collective professional judgment) of the SMEs assembled for the workshop.
Financial Plan, March 2023, page 4-2 to 4-3,

It’s not unusual for agency’s to make some tweaks to a project once it has gone through the environmental review process, but the usual claim that the DOTs make is that these tweaks are okay as long as they don’t increase the project’s “footprint.”  That’s a legally dubious assertion, but, in this case, shifting to a single level bridge actually increases the project’s literal footprint by over 50 percent:  According to ODOT’s own estimates, the double-decker bridge design would be about 173 feet wide, while the single-level bridge would be about 272 feet wide.

For four years, the Oregon and Washington highway departments have been pushing a revival of the failed multi-billion dollar I-5 Columbia River Crossing.  Their key sales pitch is that the size and design of the project can’t vary in any meaningful way from the project’s decade-old record of decision, for fear of delaying construction or losing federal funding.

Far from being a minor change, this represents the revival of an alternative design that was ruled out more than a decade ago.  It also shows that the IBR project is effectively conceding that its critics, who’ve alleged that its double-decker “modified locally preferred alternative” has a serious safety and cost problem due to its excessive grade and elevated off-ramps.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it shows that warnings that major changes couldn’t be made to the project out of a fear of delays were simply baseless manipulation—a familiar highway department tactic.

Resurrecting a discarded 15-year old alternative

When he first revealed that IBR was considering a single level design in February of 2023, IBR administrator Greg Johnson made a point of claiming that the single-level design isn’t “new.”  It isn’t, it’s quite old, and to have listened to the Oregon and Washington transportation departments, it’s so old that it’s been dead and buried for almost 15 years.

The last official ODOT and WSDOT document featuring a single level crossing design was nearly 15 years ago:  the 2008 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  It proposed two possible designs for replacement bridges for the current I-5, a pair of side-by-side double-decker bridges (which were chosen as the preferred design), and a trio of single-level bridges, as shown here.

The project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in 2011, abandoned the single-level option, and chose to proceed only with a pair of double-decker bridges (with transit and bike-ped access placed on the lower level of each structure).  Also:  Notice that the Final Environmental Impacts Statement omitted the notations showing the actual width of the proposed structures—part of an effort to conceal the fact that the bridges would be build wide enough to accommodate 12 full lanes of traffic.

The Final Environmental Impact Statement made a strong series of findings rejecting the single-level three-bridge design, because it would have more in-river impacts, a larger surface area with more runoff, and would have larger visual impact.  [CRC FEIS, Page 2-83]

The single-level design is considerably wider than the two-bridge double-decker design, as shown in this 2007 rendering prepared by IBR.

It’s not too late to make fundamental changes to the plan

Greg Johnson has cried “wolf” about making serious changes to the IBR project, even as its budget has ballooned by 54 percent in a little over two years, to a total price tag of as much as $7.5 billion.  But this latest—and very late—change to the project design is an indication that it’s not too late to fix the fatal flaws in this project.  Right now the fatal flaws revolve around its bloated design and price.  The reason the project is so expensive has little to do with the bridge structure itself, but rather the extravagant plans of ODOT and WSDOT to widen I-5 for miles on either side of the Columbia River, and rebuild, at much greater expense than the bridge itself, seven different freeway interchanges.  If this were simply a bridge replacement—as its name claims—the project would be vastly simpler, less expensive, and likely not controversial.

For the past four years, IBR has maintained it’s far too late to make any design changes to the IBR project.  Ever since he took the job of IBR administrator Greg Johnson has been warning elected officials not to make any significant changes to the project design included in the 2011 FEIS for fear of delaying it further.  An immersed tunnel?  More consideration for climate?  A lift-span?  A narrower freeway?  None of these can even be studied, or advanced into the environmental review process, for fear that it will cause some additional delay.

But now, what about that inviolable “Modified Locally Preferred Alternative” that you couldn’t touch in any way without endangering the project’s schedule and jeopardizing federal funding?  Well, IBR staff have unilaterally decided it won’t actually work, and their pushing ahead with an entirely new and much wider design, any trying to shoehorn it into the federal environmental review process without honestly disclosing the major changes they’ve made.

More than six months after theoretically getting buy-off from all of the project’s eight partners for this untouchable design, and spending tens of millions of dollars defining the “modified locally preferred alternative,” Johnson has suddenly decided that he can unilaterally inject back into the discussion an alternative that the project ruled out more than a decade ago. And make no mistake, changing from double-decker bridges to a single level crossing has significant impacts.  It almost certainly means more piers in the Columbia River, and more real estate disruption, particularly on the steadily redeveloping Vancouver waterfront.

For the record this isn’t the first, or even the second, time the engineers at ODOT and WSDOT have screwed up the design of the proposed river crossing.  In 2010, an Independent Review Panel appointed by Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire found that the “open web” design the agencies proposed was “unbuildable.”  It was replaced by the double-decker truss.  And then, in 2011, the bridge had to be re-designed again to achieve a river clearance of 116 feet, because the two highway departments couldn’t bludgeon the Coast Guard into accepting their preferred 95 foot clearance.  Both these engineering errors delayed the project and raised its cost—something you’ll never hear ODOT and WSDOT admit.

Why now? 

The problems with the bridge grade were first identified more than a decade ago, when the Coast Guard objections let ODOT and WSDOT to hastily redesign the Columbia River Crossing to provide a 116-foot navigation clearance (21 feet higher than what the two highway agencies were then planning).  ODOT and WSDOT never resolved the questions that were raised about the project’s excessive grade, particularly concerns that steep bridge grades would cause large trucks to slow and impede traffic flow.  Following Johnson’s insistent demand that no changes be made to the project defined in the Columbia River Crossing FEIS, IBR has stuck to the steep, double-deck design, never questioning the grade.

But late last year, IBR has had to produce a new cost estimate.  Embarrassingly, the cost of the IBR project has ballooned by 54 percent to nearly $7.5 billion.  To deflect criticism about higher costs, IBR officials testified in December that the project was also subjected to a “Cost Estimate Validation Process,” or CEVP, which the state DOTs advertised as a sure-fire cure for future cost escalation.  As we pointed out at City Observatory, no documentation exists for that claimed CEVP.  The Washington Department of Transportation responded to a public records request for copies of the CEVP by saying “no documents exist.”  Because the agencies have shrouded this process in secrecy we can’t say for sure, but it seems likely that a CEVP meeting likely identified the bridge grade, and expense of elevated interchanges as major cost, schedule and design risks to the project.  That would explain why, more than six months after locking down a double-decker “modified locally preferred alternative,” that Johnson and the IBR team are suddenly reviving the discarded single-level bridge plan.

IBR’s Stacked Highway Bridge Alternative (2021)

For reference, we’re providing details of the alternative designs that have been considered by the IBR in the past decade.  As noted above, the last time any of the project’s documents mentioned a single-level crossing was in the 2008 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  Most recently, in October 2021, when it last listed the alternative bridge designs it was studying, IBR made absolutely no mention of a “single-level bridge”.  In fact, the only alternative design they showed was pretty much the opposite:  a single and larger stacked bridge, with highway lanes on the upper and lower levels of the double-decker bridge, and with transit and bike-pedestrian routes cantilevered on the sides of the lower level of the double decker.  And now, when it comes time to produce actual renderings, the single bridge stacked alignment has simply disappeared without a trace.

For four years, the Oregon and Washington highway departments have been pushing a revival of the failed multi-billion dollar I-5 Columbia River Crossing.  Their key sales pitch is that the size and design of the project can’t vary in any meaningful way from the project’s decade-old record of decision, for fear of delaying construction or losing federal funding.

Months after choosing a “locally preferred alternative” and after years of warning people that moving away from the 2011 design of the CRC would cause enormous delays, IBR is moving to resurrect a bridge design it ruled out more than a decade ago.

A single level crossing would be significantly wider than the current proposal for a pair of double-decker bridges.  Instead, the project would consist of two or three side-by-side, single level bridges, carrying multiple lanes of traffic, light rail trains, bikes and pedestrians all one one level.

The single level crossing would dramatically increase the I-5 footprint, particularly where it crosses the shoreline into downtown Vancouver.

The sudden decision to revive this long-discarded alternative clearly vindicates criticisms raised by independent engineers that the proposed double-decker bridge is too steep; the single level design enables a lower bridge grade.  It also shows that the highway department’s claims that the project’s design can’t be changed are simply false.

IBR Suddenly Announces a New Bridge Design

On February 9, 2023 IBR Administrator Greg Johnson off-handedly slipped this little gem into a routine briefing for the project’s community advisory group.

He told them:  “We’re looking at a bridge configuration of a single level.”

And Johnson immediately interjected, “that is something that is not new.”

He went on to explain that this gives them added choices for “bridge types and bridge aesthetics.”

Here’s the full quote, and following it a link to the meeting video:

Right now we are on target, we’re on task. And the team is driving forward with technical reports that will go out to the cooperating agencies and partners. We’re also working on within the supplemental we’re working on different technical aspects to make sure that we are covering potential design elements. We are looking at a bridge configuration of a single level. So that is something that is not new, but it is something that we wanted to make sure within the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement so folks can see the potential impacts of, of what having all of the modes on one level rather than having transit underneath the lane and having the Bike Ped underneath the lane, we have an option that shows them all at one level. So once again, it’s something that we’re studying the impacts of and we will have those two bridge configurations going forward. We know that one level gives us some some some interesting options as far as bridge types and bridge aesthetics that we don’t get with having transit underneath and having Bike-Ped underneath. So we will be looking at that and you will be seeing at an upcoming meeting some renderings that display these potential configurations.

Far from being a minor change, this represents the revival of an alternative design that was ruled out more than a decade ago.  It also shows that the IBR project is effectively conceding that its critics, who’ve alleged that its double-decker “modified locally preferred alternative” has a serious safety and cost problem due to its excessive grade and elevated off-ramps.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it shows that warnings that major changes couldn’t be made to the project out of a fear of delays were simply baseless manipulation.

Resurrecting a discarded 15-year old alternative

As we mentioned, IBR administrator Greg Johnson made a point of claiming that the single level design isn’t “new.”  It isn’t, it’s quite old, and to have listened to the Oregon and Washington transportation departments, it’s so old that it’s been dead and buried for almost 15 years.

The last official ODOT and WSDOT document featuring a single level crossing design was the 2008 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  It proposed two possible designs for replacement bridges for the current I-5, a pair of side-by-side double-decker bridges (which were chosen as the preferred design), and a trio of single level bridges, as shown here.

The project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in 2011, abandoned the single level option, and chose to proceed only with a pair of double-decker bridges (with transit and bike-ped access placed on the lower level of each structure).

The Final Environmental Impact Statement made a strong series of findings rejecting the single level three-bridge design, because it would have more in-river impacts, a larger surface area with more runoff, and would have larger visual impact.  [CRC FEIS, Page 2-83]

The single-level design is considerably wider than the two-bridge double-decker design, as shown in this 2007 rendering prepared by IBR.

Apparently we can reconsider the design of the crossing, even at this late date.  Ever since he took the job of IBR administrator more than three years ago, Greg Johnson has been warning elected officials not to make any significant changes to the project design included in the 2011 FEIS for fear of delaying it further.  An immersed tunnel?  More consideration for climate?  A lift-span?  A narrower freeway?  None of these can even be studied, or advanced into the environmental review process, for fear that it will cause some additional delay.

But now, more than six months after theoretically getting buy-off from all of the project’s eight partners for this untouchable design, and spending tens of millions of dollars defining the “modified locally preferred alternative,” Johnson has suddenly decided that he can unilaterally inject back into the discussion an alternative that the project ruled out more than a decade ago.

And make no mistake, changing from double-decker bridges to a single level crossing has significant impacts.  It almost certainly means more piers in the Columbia River, and more real estate disruption, particularly on the steadily redeveloping Vancouver waterfront.

A bridge too steep

While Johnson claims that the single level design is allows some more aesthetic options, that’s simply misdirection.  The real reason that IBR is changing its design at this extremely late date is that it has suddenly realized that one of its most persistent critics was right, all along.  For years, engineer Bob Ortblad—who advocates for an immersed tube tunnel crossing—has been pointing out that the proposed IBR bridge design has a dangerously steep grade (nearly 4 percent).  This would make it one of the steepest interstate highway bridges in the country.  Just to hammer the point home:  the Biden Administration just approved a grant of $150 million toward the reconstruction of the I-10 bridge in Louisiana, currently the steepest interstate, to reduce the grade of the bridge to improve safety.  It’s also worth noting that the current IBR bridge design violates ODOT’s own standards for interstate highway bridge grades, and would require a design exception.  In addition to the safety hazard caused by the bridge grade, the extreme elevation of the roadway requires very steep on- and off-ramps, especially those connecting the bridge with Washington State Route 14, which runs very near the riverbank.   Those ramps would have even steeper and more dangerous grades than the bridge itself, a point Ortblad has made graphically:

What Johnson didn’t say—and what’s plainly the real reason for a single level crossing—is that it enables the engineers to lower the roadway by as much as 30 and 35 feet, consequently reducing the overall grade, and importantly, lowering the height of on- and off-ramps at either end of the bridge crossing.  The current LPA design calls for a minimum river clearance of 116 feet for the bottom level of each double-decker bridge.  The roadway would be on top of the double-decker, about 30-35 feet higher.  A single level design could lower the maximum height of the bridge by about 30-35 feet, enabling a lower grade.

Of course, the last thing IBR officials want to do is concede that Ortblad was right—that would damage their disinformation campaign about the merits of the immersed tube tunnel.  Instead, they’re suddenly concerned about bridge type and aesthetics.

Why now? 

The problems with the bridge grade were first identified more than a decade ago, when the Coast Guard objections let ODOT and WSDOT to hastily redesign the Columbia River Crossing to provide a 116-foot navigation clearance (21 feet higher than what the two highway agencies were planning).  ODOT and WSDOT never resolved the questions that were raised about the project’s excessive grade, particularly concerns that steep bridge grades would cause large trucks to slow and impede traffic flow.  Following Johnson’s insistent demand that no changes be made to the project defined in the Columbia River Crossing FEIS, IBR has stuck to the steep, double-deck design, never questioning the grade.

But in the past two months, IBR has had to produce a new cost estimate.  Embarrassingly, the cost of the IBR project has ballooned by 54 percent to nearly $7.5 billion.  To deflect criticism about higher costs, IBR officials testified in December that the project was also subjected to a “Cost Estimate Validation Process,” or CEVP, which the state DOTs advertised as a sure-fire cure for future cost escalation.  As we pointed out at City Observatory, no documentation exists for that claimed CEVP.  The Washington Department of Transportation responded to a public records request for copies of the CEVP by saying “no documents exist.”  Because the agencies have shrouded this process in secrecy we can’t say for sure, but it seems likely that a CEVP meeting likely identified the bridge grade, and expense of elevated interchanges as major cost, schedule and design risks to the project.  That would explain why, more than six months after locking down a double-decker “modified locally preferred alternative,” that Johnson and the IBR team are suddenly reviving the discarded single level bridge plan.

It’s not too late to make fundamental changes to the plan

Greg Johnson has cried “wolf” about making serious changes to the IBR project, even as its budget has ballooned by 54 percent in a little over two years, to a total price tag of as much as $7.5 billion.  But this latest—and very late—change to the project design is an indication that it’s not too late to fix the fatal flaws in this project.  Right now the fatal flaws revolve around its bloated design and price.  The reason the project is so expensive has little to do with the bridge structure itself, but rather the extravagant plans of ODOT and WSDOT to widen I-5 for miles on either side of the Columbia River, and rebuild, at much greater expense than the bridge itself, seven different freeway interchanges.  If this were simply a bridge replacement—as its name claims—the project would be vastly simpler, less expensive, and likely not controversial.

IBR’s Stacked Highway Bridge Alternative (2021)

For reference, we’re providing details of the alternative designs that have been considered by the IBR in the past decade.  As noted above, the last time any of the project’s documents mentioned a single level crossing was in the 2008 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  Most recently, in October 2021, when it last listed the alternative bridge designs it was studying, IBR made absolutely no mention of a “single-level bridge”.  In fact, the only alternative design they showed was pretty much the opposite:  a larger stacked highway bridge, with highway lanes on the upper and lower levels of the double-decker bridge, and with transit and bike-pedestrian routes cantilevered on the sides of the lower level of the double decker.

Nothing but double deckers in 2011 in the Bridge Review Panel Report of 2011

In 2010, an expert review panel appointed by Governor’s Kulongoski and Gregoire found that the proposed “open-web” design being pushed by ODOT and WSDOT was “unbuildable.”  That led to the appointment of a “Bridge Review Panel” to quickly come up with a new alternative.  They recommended three possible alternatives in their 2011 report:  the composite truss design (which became the locally preferred alternative), and two other designs:  a cable stayed bridge and a tied arch bridge.  All three designs shared a common feature:  they were double-deckers with the transit component on a lower level of the bridge.  The cable stayed and tied arch designs had elevated bike-pedestrian paths in the center of the bridge, between the north and south bound highway lanes.

Here’s the Bridge Review Panel’s illustration of the cable stayed bridge.  The two dotted outlines in the center of the bridge structure on the cross-section illustration are the profile for the light rail transit.

Here’s the Bridge Review Panel’s illustration of the tied arch bridge.  Again, the two dotted outlines in the center of the bridge structure on the cross-section illustration are the profile for the light rail transit.

Oregon is being asked to pay for half of the cost of widening the I-5 Interstate Bridge.  Eighty percent of daily commuters, and two-thirds of all traffic on the bridge are Washington residents.  On average, these commuters earn more than Portland residents.

The 80/20 rule:  When it comes to the I-5 bridge replacement, users will pay for only 20 percent of the cost of the project through tolls.  Meanwhile, for the I-205 project in Clackamas County, users—overwhelmingly Oregonians—will pay 80 percent (or more of the cost in tolls).

Meanwhile, state legislators are looking—for the first time—to raid the state’s General Fund (which is used to pay for schools, health care, and housing) to pay for roads by subsidizing the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project to the tune of $1 billion.

The proposal for Oregon to fund half of the cost of the Interstate Bridge Replacement is a huge subsidy to Washington State commuters and suburban sprawl.

A draft proposal currently circulating in the Oregon Legislature—the so-called “-2” amendments to HB 2098—would have Oregon General Fund taxpayers contribute $1 billion to the cost of the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement Project.  That’s a huge break from established tradition.  For the better part of a century, Oregon has theoretically had a “user pays” transportation system, which pays for roads out of the State Highway Fund.  The state’s constitution supposedly draws a hard line around the state highway fund (which is filled from gas taxes, weight mile fees and vehicle registration charges) to pay for the cost of building and maintaining roads.

But the HB 2098 “-2” amendments would, for the first time, use General Fund money to subsidize road construction.

The Oregon Constitution contains provisions that have been interpreted to limit the State Highway Fund revenues to only road expenditures, a key part of a “user pays” system that the state has ostensibly had for nearly a century.  This would be a massive break from that philosophy, taking money from the general fund—something that is used to pay for schools, for health care for the poor, and for social services for the homeless.

Twice as many Washington cars on the bridge as Oregon cars.

On any given day, twice as many Washington residents cross the Columbia River as Oregon residents.  These data are from a license plate survey conducted in 2012 for the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation.

Four-fifths of all commuters on the I-5 and I-205 bridges are from Washington State.

The Census Bureau regularly surveys Americans about their commuting patterns.  We very detailed data on who commutes within the Portland metropolitan area, and these data confirm what everyone already knows:  vastly more Washington residents commute to jobs in Oregon than vice-versa.  These data show that 80 percent of all commute trips across the Columbia River are Washington residents; only 20 percent are Oregonians commuting to jobs in Washington.

The real reason for expanding the I-5 bridge is to deal with traffic congestion, and especially peak afternoon traffic congestion in the Northbound direction:  specifically, Washington residents driving home from their jobs in Oregon.  The I-5 bridges are typically not congested in the off-peak direction—because there are far fewer Oregonians driving to jobs in Washington than vice-versa. The highest levels of traffic congestion are Southbound in the morning peak hour (Washington residents commuting to jobs in Oregon), and Northbound in the afternoon peak hour (Washington residents returning home from their Oregon jobs).  In a very real sense, the cost of the I-5 bridge expansion is to serve these commuters.  There is no need to expand capacity on the I-5 bridges for Oregon workers because their commutes are not congested.

Washington Commuters have higher incomes than Oregonians

Peak-hour, drive alone commuters from Washington state to jobs in Oregon have average household incomes of $106,000 according to Census data—about 25 percent higher than for residents of the Oregon side of the Portland metropolitan area.  Clark County’s median household income of $80,500 is higher than for the region ($78,400) and for the City of Portland ($76,200).

Much of the traffic across the river is Washington residents driving to Oregon to evade Washington State sales tax.  Estimates are that the average Clark County household avoids more than $1,000 in state sales taxes each year by shopping in Oregon.  Collectively Clark County households avoid $120 million in state sales taxes per year, and this tax evasion accounts for 10 to 20 percent of traffic across the I-5 and and I-205 Columbia River Bridges.

A tale of two counties, and two toll bridges

Why do Washington residents get a big taxpayer subsidy from Oregon, and Clackamas County residents get a high toll bill?

There are two toll bridge projects before the Oregon Legislature right now.  One is the I-5 bridge, which as noted above, largely serves Washington residents, and the other is the I-205 Abernethy Bridge and I-205 freeway widening project in Clackamas County.  The I-205 project serves mostly Oregon residents, and most of them live in Clackamas County.  There’s a world of difference between how these two projects are going to be financed.

Oregon is being asked to pay for half the cost of the I-5 bridge, even though 80% of commuters and two-thirds of users are from Washington.  Oregon, of course, will pay for all of the cost of the I-205 projects.  And both projects will be paid for in part with tolls, but the tolling policy of the two projects couldn’t be more different.  The IBR project will ask users to pay only about 20 percent of the total cost of the project (about $1.5 billion of a total $7.5 billion price tag).  Meanwhile, users of the I-205 project will be asked to pay 80 percent or more of the cost through tolls.  The Oregon Department of Transportation estimates that tolling will cost the typical Clackamas County family in the project area about $600 per year in toll payments.

ODOT currently says that the I-5 bridge tolls will be as high as $3.55, while the tolls for using I-205 will be $4.40.

A key part of the reason that the tolls will be lower on I-5 is that Oregon is being asked to chip in $1 billion for the Interstate Bridge Replacement, with a HB 2098 “-2” amendment saying that money will come from General Funds.  So while Clark County commuters are getting a $1 billion subsidy from Oregon for their new bridge—and enjoying lower tolls that cover only 20 percent of the cost of the project, Clackamas County drivers on I-205 will get little or no subsidy from the State, and bear 80 percent or more of the cost of this new project.

If we’re going to ask Oregon residents, especially those from Clackamas County to pay tolls to cover nearly all of the cost of new Tualatin River and Willamette River Freeway Bridges, which are we requiring Oregon taxpayers to pay half the cost of the I-5 bridges?  Put simply:

• Clackamas County residents will be asked to pay a $4.40 toll to cover the cost of a $1 billion project.
• Clark County WA residents will be asked to pay a toll of $5.60 (or as IBR claims, $2-3) to cover the cost of a $7.5 billion project.
• ODOT’s plan will charge much relatively much higher tolls to Clackamas County residents for I-205 than it proposes to charge Clark County residents for the I-5 bridges. (I-205 is $4 of toll per billion dollar of project cost; I-5 IBR is $1 of toll per billion of project cost).

It’s hard to understand why the Oregon Legislature would treat Oregon voters and constituents in Clackamas County so much less generously than  it is proposing to treat the people in Clark County, Washington.

Subsidizing Sprawl

The effect of building more road capacity to Clark County is essentially to encourage more people to live in Clark County.  And Washington’s land use laws are far less strict that Oregon’s, meaning that much of that growth is car-dependent sprawl.  When we look at the pattern of urban growth over the last couple of decades, its apparent that Clark County Washington has grown substantially through ex-urban sprawl.  While most new growth on the Oregon side of the Columbia occurred within the Urban Growth Boundary, Clark County Growth sprawled widely.

Why should Oregon taxpayers subsidize yet another round of exurban housing development in Washington?

Fairness and the User Pays Principle

For nearly a century, Oregon has relied on the “users pays” principle to guide road finance.  In theory, gasoline consumption is roughly proportional to miles driven, and apportions to users the costs of the system in direct relation to how much they drive.  Raiding the Oregon General Fund is a dramatic break with that principal, and deserves to be questioned in any event.  But its really hard to understand why Oregon taxpayers should take money that could be used to educate children, care for the sick, or address homelessness, and use it to subsidize commuters (and shoppers) from another state.  And it’s doubly hard to understand why we’d do that, while we’re asking another group of Oregonians, those living in Clackamas County to pay for almost the entire cost of fixing another bridge.

As Governor Tina Kotek said, the financing plan for the I-5 bridge shouldn’t unfairly burden low income Oregonians.

. . When the bridge that we have now across the Columbia, the I-5 bridge, that was tolled at some time to create that bridge. I’m going to always be honest with Oregonians. We have to figure out how to pay to maintain and modernize our system of bridges and roads. And the plan right now to pay for the the improvements on the Abernathy bridge on I 205 and to pay for new I-5 bridge is planned on tolling. Now I’m open to other ideas but I think we should be honest, if we need those types of infrastructure. We’re gonna get as much money as we can from the federal government, and we have to have a conversation about how to pay for it locally. My goal is to make sure whatever we do, it does not unfairly burden our lowest income Oregonians who need to be on those roads. We have to figure out how to modernize and maintain our infrastructure.

Governor Kotek interviewed on KOIN-TV February 24, 2023 (Emphasis added)

But that’s exactly what this proposal does.  It keeps tolls low for Washington residents (they cover only 20 percent of the cost of the bridge they use) while it charges high tolls to Oregon residents (who pay 80 percent or more of the cost of their bridge).  And the HB 2098 “-2” amendments propose to take money that is key to helping low income Oregonians (the State General Fund) and use it to subsidize out of state travelers.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the original bridge (built in 1912) and the parallel second span built in 1958, were both paid for entirely with toll revenues. In theory, we have a “user pays” transportation system—although that’s increasingly become a myth, as nationally we’ve bailed out the federal highway trust fund with general revenues to the tune of more than $200 billion, and we grossly subsidize heavy, over-the-road freight trucks that cause vastly more damage to roads, the environment and people.  Tolling is a “user pays” system:  If 80 percent of the peak hour users of the I-5 bridge are Clark County commuters, and we’re expanding the capacity of the bridge to meet their peak hour travel choices, its incredibly fair and reasonably to ask them to pay for most of the cost of the project.  Washington taxpayers are getting a great deal:  even though they account for roughly twice as much bridge traffic as Oregonians, Oregon is going pay just as much as they are toward the bridge.

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 allay fears of poor management and further cost overruns, IBR officials testified they had completed a “Cost Estimate Validation Process” (CEVP).  They assured legislators they had consulted independent subject matter experts and assessed more than 100 risks.

But asked for copies of the CEVP under the public records law, agency officials reported “no records exist” of the CEVP.

And the supposedly “nationally recognized” CEVP process has been around for more than a decade, was judged inadequate and error-filled for the Columbia River Crossing, and failed to detect key cost and schedule risks.

ODOT and WSDOT are more interested in deflecting criticism than in being accountable for—and correcting—runaway project costs.

IBR, December 2022 Legislative Testimony:  “A CEVP was recently completed.”

IBR, January 2023 response to public records request for the CEVP:  “No records exist.”

The Oregon and Washington highway departments are pushing forward with something they call the “Interstate Bridge Replacement Project.”  As we’ve pointed out at City Observatory, this project, which is actually a clone of the Columbia River Crossing that died a decade ago, is really a 5 mile long freeway widening project.  And its one whose cost has ballooned to as much as $7.5 billion, according to estimates revealed in December 2022. This is part of a consistent pattern, the Oregon Department of Transportation has a long string of 100 percent cost-overruns on its major projects.  Almost every large project the agency has undertaken in the past 20 years has ended up costing at least double—and sometimes triple—ts original cost estimate.

While the agency wants to blame recent construction cost inflation for the increase, that’s simply wrong.  The transportation agencies official projections of future construction price inflation show a negligible change from 2020 levels. Higher construction cost inflation accounts for only $300 million of a $2.7 billion cost increase over their 2020 estimate.

Don’t Worry About Cost Overruns, We did a CEVP™!

At the December 12, 2022 meeting of the Joint Oregon-Washington I-5 bridge legislative oversight committee, IBR administrators tried to buffer concerns about rising project costs by invoking a Cost Estimate Validation Process  or “CEVP “process as a way to diagnose and prevent further cost escalation.

IBR administrator Frank Green testified:

Its a process that enables us to identify costs . . .we also go through a process where we bring subject matter experts to identify, on a program like this, what are some of the potential risks that we may encounter as we’re moving through development of the program.

. . . as we produce our CEVP report and publish it, it will show the list of risks, well over a hundred, that our team and our partners and our subject matter experts identified. It’s important to understand that we also identified strategies, that we as a team and our partners can take to minimize the potential impact of these risks.

Joint I-5 Committee Meeting, December 12, 2022 

This explanation of the Cost Estimate Validation Process was also posted to the IBR project website (emphasis added):

A Cost Estimate Validation Process (CEVP) was recently completed to provide independent review and validation of project cost and schedule estimates.

A CEVP is an estimation process that analyzes risks specific to the project to quantify the impacts and possible mitigation strategies in seeking to limit the impacts of costs and or delays. Cost risks identified for the IBR program are primarily tied to possible schedule delays, although market uncertainties, changes during construction, and design modifications can all pose a risk to cost escalation. Some specific risks identified in the CVEP include:

▶ Possible legal challenges of program environmental process

▶ In-water work complexities during bridge construction

▶ Delay in state matching funds

“No Records Exist” of a current CEVP

Intrigued to learn more, City Observatory filed a public records request with WSDOT (one of IBR’s two parent state agencies) asking for copies of the CEVP.  We were told that there were no written or electronic records pertaining to the CEVP, and that none would be available before March of 2023—more than ninety days after the IBR testified to the Legislature that the CEVP was “completed.”  Their official response to our request—”No Records Exist”–is shown here:

At this point, there’s simply no evidence that WSDOT undertook any kind of analysis.  They just gravely intoned the words “CEVP” and assured that this would insulate the project from future costs and risks.  If there’s no documentation, no electronic files there’s simply nothing to substantiate that any kind of analysis was actually performed.  It’s hard to see how such an insubstantial or poorly documented process  will do anything to prevent or manage future cost overruns.

One has to believe that IBR, according to its own testimony, generated (and analyzed) a list of more than 100 risks, and reviewed them with subject matter experts, without creating a single document, electronic file or other public record.

Apparently, just as former President Donald Trump can declassify a document just by thinking about it, WSDOT and ODOT can perform a CEVP without creating a single document or electronic file.  This strongly suggests that the real purpose of a CEVP is to distract legislators, not identify or prevent budget or schedule risks.

Deja Vu All Over Again:  The CEVP has proven a failure at predicting or preventing cost-overruns for this very project

Whether a CEVP actually exists as a tangible object or not is an open question. An equally important question is whether a CEVP, if one existed, would do anything to accurately predict, or prevent further cost escalation and schedule delays.  Unfortunately, the history of CEVP with exactly this project shows it did nothing to forestall mistakes, delays and cost increases.

It’s too bad that none of today’s Oregon legislators were on hand the last time they were discussing a huge and risky bridge over the Columbia River, because “CEVP!” is exactly what ODOT officials claimed would avoid cost overruns, when they were asking for funding for the then $3 billon failed Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project (which has been revived as the IBR).  Twelve years ago, in 2011, ODOT consultant and gubernatorial advisor Patricia McCaig confidently told Oregon Legislators that they had a handle on project costs, because of Washington’s CEVP process.

Then, as now, the vaunted “CEVP” exists primarily as a fig-leaf and a talking point to insulate the two DOTs from criticism, and deflect attention from their consistent record of enormous cost-overruns.

In addition, an honest “cost estimate validation process” would reveal that the project is taking huge financial risks by failing to advance either a moveable span or an immersed tube tunnel as full options in the environmental review process.  By ignoring the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirements to fully and fairly appraise such alternatives, it is IBR that is adding considerable cost and schedule risk to the project–an a transparent attempt to force adoption of its preferred massive mega-project.

Sigh. Here we are again, another year, and yet another uninformative, and actively misleading congestion cost report from Inrix.

More myth and misdirection from highly numerate charlatans.

Burying the lede:  Traffic congestion is now lower than it was in 2019, and congestion declined twice as much as the decline in vehicle travel.

Today, Inrix released its latest “Global Traffic Scorecard,” which purports to rank US and Global cities based on traffic congestion levels.Over the years, we’ve reviewed Inrix annual traffic scorecard reports.  They’re monotonous in their sameness.  Congestion, we’re told, is very bad and very costly.  But little of this is true or more importantly, actionable.  The estimates of supposed congestion “costs” simply aren’t true because neither Inrix (nor anyone else) has specified how they’d eliminate congestion at a cost less than the supposed dollar value of time lost.  Without a clear idea of how one could go about eliminating these costs, the information simply isn’t actionable.  As we’ve explained in our “Reporter’s Guide to Congestion Cost Studies,” these reports are rife with conceptual and methodological errors.  Today’s Inrix report is still marred by these same problems.

There are a couple of improvements in this report from the rest of the literature. Inrix spends some time on traffic crashes and deaths, and notes the troubling increase in crashes despite the decline in vehicle miles traveled. To their credit, Inrix this year has carefully avoided claiming or implying that expanding highway capacity would somehow reduce congestion.  That claim has been definitively and scientifically debunked.  We know that, thanks to the fundamental law of road congestion, that more road capacity will simply induce more car travel, fully offsetting any supposed congestion-busting benefits.  But that won’t stop many Inrix clients, notably state highway departments, from pointing to Inrix data as the reason they should be given tens of billions of dollars to widen roads.  And that’s apparently the real purpose of the Inrix report, to curry favor with potential highway department clients.

Most of what we’ve said about previous Inrix congestion reports apply with equal force to this one.  We’ll highlight a few points.

First, if you read closely, you’ll learn that time lost to congestion in the US is still lower than it was three years ago, prior to the pandemic.  Inrix reports that congestion time losses were 20 percent lower in 2022 than 2019, 4.8 billion hours, down from 6 billion hours.  This is good news.

Second, that reduction in congestion should be celebrated, and should also be a teachable moment. If we’re so concerned about congestion, then the experience of the past few years ought to be studied to see if we can learn something.  Right off the top, there’s a really important fact that’s buried in the Inrix report: While congestion declined by 20 percent from 2019, traffic (vehicle miles traveled or VMT) went down by just 9 percent.

The fact that congestion declined more than twice as much as VMT is a critical observation:  It means that demand management can reduce congestion, and that modest changes in travel volumes produce disproportionately large improvements in transportation system function.  If instead of managing demand with a pandemic and lockdowns, we did something a little more nuanced, like road pricing, we could achieve real and lasting congestion reductions.  That’s exactly the sort of actionable information that ought to be in this report, but which is missing.

Third, there are a whole bunch of other important things that are missing as well.  If you search through the latest Inrix report, here are some words you simply won’t find:  “sprawl,” “pollution,” “emissions,”  “carbon,” “climate,”  “induced demand,” “pricing,” and “tolling.” Trying to talk about urban transportation systems without considering their effects on these other pressing problems is a measure of how detached the UMR is from the reality of the 21st century.  Transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, and these emission are increasing. The Inrix report exists solely to feed an overriding obsession with speed and congestion as the. criterion for setting transportation policy.

Fourth, in reality the city rankings are meaningless.  The measure Inrix uses totally ignores the differences in distances among Metro areas.  The fact that you have to drive twice as far, on average, in Houston or Atlanta as you do in Chicago or Boston, doesn’t figure in to the “cost” of commuting.  As we’ve shown, this particular measure inaccurately penalizes compact cities where people make shorter trips, because it looks only at the difference between peak and non-peak travel times.  Cities with shorter travel distances generate less car travel (vehicle miles traveled), emit much less greenhouse gas emissions, and save their residents billions of dollars in avoided travel costs compared to sprawling, car-centric metro areas.  The best way to reduce the cost of transportation, and time lost is to have more compact development, something we’ve demonstrated in in our previous analysis.  And while the Inrix report spends a lot of time talking about the added burden of high gas costs, it completely leaves out the fact that higher gas prices are much more burdensome in cities and neighborhoods where people have to drive long distances.

Fifth, the Inrix rankings are a profoundly car-centric view of the world. Inrix likes to tout its “big data” noting that its estimates are drawn from billions of data points.  But those data points are almost entirely cars and trucks.  There’s an old saying “if you don’t count it, it doesn’t count.” They leaven their reporting with a handful of statistics on bikes and pedestrians, but these are drawn from the rare reports compiled by cities, not from Inrix data. The car and bike data, and the actual variation in commuting distances, simply don’t figure into the Inrix rankings.  In short, if you don’t travel by car, you really don’t count in the Inrix rankings.

Sixth, there’s no evidence that driving faster makes us happier.  Inrix and other congestion reports prey on our sense of annoyance and victimization about traffic congestion.  It’s all these other people who are slowing us down, and we’d be better off if they were gone and we could drive faster.  But cities that are optimized for speed simply sprawl further and require more driving, making us more car dependent and costing us more money.

Finally, it’s truly disappointing that such a rich and detailed source of information should be used largely for car-based propaganda.  Reports like these aren’t really designed to help diagnose or solve problems, but simply to generate heat.  They’ll be used in predictably misleading ways by road-widening advocates.  More or bigger data doesn’t help us solve our problems when its filtered through this incomplete and biased framework.

Our reviews of previous Inrix Scorecards

In 2018, we lampooned the predictable alarmist tone of the congestion report:

Cue the extreme telephoto shots of freeways!

Wallow in the pity of commuters stuck in traffic because of all those other people!

Wail that congestion is getting worse and worse!

We noted that the 2017 Inrix report adopted a new and more expansive definition of congestion costs which further inflated its estimates.

Older studies like TTI, estimated dollar costs based on the additional time spent on a trip due to congestion: So if a trip that took ten minutes in un-congested traffic took a total of 15 minutes in a congested time period, they would monetize the value of the five minutes of additional time spent. The Inrix report appears to monetize the total value of time spent in congested conditions, i.e. anytime travel speeds fell below 65 percent of free flow speeds.

In 2016, we gave the Inrix report card a “D” 

In 2015, we pointed out that the Inrix study had a number of contradictory conclusions, and that Inrix had “disappeared” much of its earlier data showing that high gas prices had demonstrably reduced traffic congestion in US cities.

For more information and analysis about the conceptual and methodological problems in these “congestion cost studies,” see our Reporter’s Guide.

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 Oregon Department of Transportation has a long string of 100 percent cost-overruns on its major projects.  Almost every large project the agency has undertaken in the past 20 years has ended up costing at least double–and sometimes triple–its original cost estimate.

The data don’t support their claim–their own agencies official projections of future construction price inflation show a negligible change from 2020 levels.

Higher construction cost inflation accounts for only $300 million of a $2.7 billion cost increase.

The cost estimate for the I-5 bridges just jumped by 54%, from $4.8 billion to as much as $7.5 billion.  The principal culprit according to the Oregon and Washington highway departments is “higher inflation.”

Project director Greg Johnson lamented to the Portland Tribune:

“Nothing gets cheaper as time goes on. Construction projects across the country are experiencing unprecedented cost increases due to supply chain issues and increasing material and labor costs as well as other factors, and our program is no exception,” Johnson said.

But the project’s earlier projections fully anticipated that there would be inflation—it was no surprise.  The only question is whether the recent spate of construction cost increases somehow account for a greater than 50 percent increase in the total cost of the project in just the three years since its latest “inflation-adjusted” estimate.

The claim that the increase is due to inflation is not borne out by either WSDOT or ODOT’s current official forecasts of future construction cost inflation.  Both Oregon and Washington prepare such forecasts.  The Oregon forecast recognizes a short-term spike in construction costs, but expects construction inflation to settle down to historic levels.  This from their October 2022 forecast

From 2023 through 2031, ODOT expects that construction cost inflation will be about 3 percent per year.

Similarly, Washington’s latest highway construction cost index calls for construction costs to increase in the 2-4 percent range from now through 2030.  WSDOT data show the same spike in 2021, but expect prices to actually decline in 2023, and then stabilize at a little more than two percent per year through the remainder of the decade.

From 2020 through 2030, WSDOT forecasts construction cost inflation of 2.4 percent per year (including the 10 percent increase in 2022).

That represents almost no increase over the inflation that IBR officials said they had used in constructing their earlier forecasts of the IBR cost.  (Keep in mind that cost estimates are made in “year-of-expenditure” dollars and according to their testimony to the Oregon Legislature, they model assumed the same construction time frame as the earlier estimates.  In January of 2021, the IBR team described the methodology they used to construct their estimates and predicted construction cost inflation of 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent per year after 2020:

As with the construction cost inflation factor, the program team used WSDOT’s Capital Development and Management (CPDM) historical and forecast cost indices for Preliminary Engineering (PE), Right-ofWay (RW) acquisition, and Construction activities (CN), using third-party data sources and statewide experience. The values used to escalate fiscal year (FY) 2012 dollars to FY 2020 are based on these indices by the three expenditure types, which include historical data through FY 2019. The overall effect of the three historical cost indices that were used to inflate from FY 2012 to FY 2020 equates to an average annual inflation rate from 2.0% to 2.2%, depending on which capital cost option is selected. Projected inflation rates by year beyond FY 2020 vary, averaging between 2.2% and 2.3% when applied to the expenditure schedules for the capital cost options.

The critical factor here is the increase in expected inflation over the next decade or so between the project’s 2020 estimate and its new estimate.  In 2020, they said the price estimate was based on an expected inflation rate of 2.2 to 2.3 percent.  According to Washington’s official forecast the rate is now expected to be 2.4 percent per year through 2030; and for Oregon, the rate is predicted to be about 3 percent per year through 2031.  This relatively low rate of inflation would do little to raise project costs. Over the next 10 years, 3 percent inflation per year rather than 2.2 percent inflation per year, would be expected to increase a $4.8 billion construction budget by about $300 million.  This hardly accounts for the increase in maximum construction cost to $7.5 billion.

By not showing their work, and describing exactly how their inflation estimates changed between their 2020 project cost estimate and their current 2022 cost estimate, the IBR is exaggerating the importance of inflation, and downplaying its inability to accurately calculate future costs.  Its easy to blame inflation, but if a changed inflation outlook is really the cause of the cost increase, they should use their own agencies official estimates to show exactly how much the change in inflation affects the project’s cost: they haven’t.

IBR officials presented a scary looking, but largely irrelevant chart showing the fluctuation of prices of a number of building materials.  Never mind that at least three of these categories–gypsum, lumber and aluminum–have almost no relevance for bridge construction projects.

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 accommodate a ten lane freeway, not just  two additional “auxiliary” lanes

ODOT is trying to avoid NEPA, by building a wide roadway now, and then re-striping it for more lanes after it is built

The agency has utterly failed to examine the traffic, pollution and safety effects of the ten-lane roadway they’ll actually build.

The proposed $1.45 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway Project is all about building a wider freeway.  But there’s one question that’s left unanswered in  all of the project’s hundreds of pages of p.r. materials and reports:  How wide a roadway are they actually going to build?

As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, OregonDOT has gone to great lengths to say that they are merely adding “two ‘auxiliary’ lanes” to the existing I-5 freeway.  But they’ve never released clearly labeled, accurately scaled plans that show the actual width of the roadway they’re proposing.  The current roadway has two “through” lanes in each direction as it crosses under NE Weidler Street.  ODOT claims that they’re just adding two more “auxiliary lanes.”  but in reality, they’re building a roadway that could accommodate 10 travel lanes (in addition to lengthy on- and off-ramps for freeway traffic.

That matters, because its a few hours work with a highway paint machine to re-stripe a roadway to get an added lane or two.  And because ODOT’s traffic modeling and environmental analyses are based on the assumption that there will only be two additional lanes, the Supplemental Environmental Assessment doesn’t reveal the true traffic, livability or environmental effects of a likely ten lane roadway.  (ODOT is looking to exploit a loophole in FHWA environmental regulations—which themselves likely violate NEPA—that allow a road to be re-striped without triggering a further environmental assessment).

At City Observatory, we’ve been following plans by the Oregon Department of Transportation to spend upwards of $1.45 billion widening this mile and a half long stretch of Interstate 5 opposite downtown Portland in the city’s Rose Quarter.  As we’ve noted, the agency has gone to great pains to deny that it’s actually widening the freeway at all, engaging in a tortured, misleading and at times absurdist effort.

For more than three years, we’ve e challenged ODOT to reveal the actual width of the project they were proposing to build.  The agency’s 2019 Environmental Assessment (which, by law, is supposed to be a full disclosure of the project’s impacts on the surrounding area) contained just a single crude illustration of a cross-section of the project’s right-of-way.  Using that diagram, we deduced that the freeway was to planned to be at least 126 feet wide–enough, not just for adding a mere two lanes to I-5 existing four, but actually wide enough for eight full travel lanes plus standard urban shoulders.

But that actually understates the true size of the project.  City Observatory later obtained unreleased documents prepared by ODOT and its contractors showing that the agency planned to build a 160 foot wide roadway through the Rose Quarter–easily enough for ten highway lanes.  (We’ve provided a blow-by-blow description of our efforts to pry these secrets from recalcitrant ODOT staff, and copies of the documents we obtained, below).

Still Hiding Freeway Width

In late November, ODOT released its Supplemental Environmental Analysis (SEA) for the Rose Quarter.  It continues ODOT’s strategy of deception and obfuscation about the width of the roadway they are planning to build.  Just as in the 2019 Environmental Assessment, they’ve published a “not-to-scale” drawing of a cross section of the freeway that entirely omits key measurements (while selectively labeling just a few features).

This illustration is plainly deceptive.  The drawing is not to scale, by its own admission.  It appears that there are only 3 northbound and 3 southbound travel lanes (the two central parts of the covered section).  But the actual width of these portions of the project are never disclosed.  By the project’s own admission, each of these spans may be 80 feet (or more), which is easily enough room for five traffic lanes in each direction, with ample provision for shoulders (five travel lanes would occupy only 60 feet of an 80 foot wide covered area).  According the the Supplemental Environmental Assessment, the northernmost third of the freeway cover has spans in excess of 80 feet in length (Figure 2.7, page 19).

Massively wide: 160 to 200 feet of roadway

So how wide is the freeway, really?  ODOT isn’t saying directly, but we can get a good idea by looking at another poorly labeled (but scaled) drawing included in the project’s right of way report.  The diagram (Figure 4 on page 12) shows the existing streets (the grid running North-South and East-West) and the proposed widened I-5 freeway, running diagonally through the Rose Quarter from Northwest to Southeast.  The individual lanes of the freeway are indicated.  This diagram makes it hard to see or measure, so we’ve zoomed in and added a scale (from the original drawing).

This section shows the portion of the freeway as it crosses under the NE Weidler Street Overpass.  Here the freeway is divided into three parts, from West to East a two lane southbound off-ramp from I-5, an eight lane main-line section of freeway, and a two lane North bound off ramp.  Including all the lengthy ramps, the footprint of this freeway is 12 lanes wide.

Again, these lane markings aren’t definitive.  Let’s look at the actual width of the roadway.  We’ve added a 200 foot scale at three points along the freeway.  It’s evident that the freeway is more than 200 feet wide near North Hancock Street (the northernmost scale.  It is nearly 200 feet wide at NE Broadway (the middle scale), and slightly less than 200 feet wide just south of NE Weidler (the southernmost scale).  This width is more than enough to accommodate ten travel lanes, as well as the freeway’s proposed on and off ramps

Violating the National Environmental Policy Act

The purpose of an environmental assessment is to disclose the likely effects of a proposed action, in this case, how a wider freeway will affect the community and the environment.  By concealing the actual physical width of the structure they intend to build, the Oregon Department of Transportation is making it impossible for the public to accurately understand the effects of the project, or gauge the truthfulness of claims made by ODOT that it will only add two “auxiliary” lanes of traffic.  ODOT is in violation of NEPA.  It needs to produce a fully detailed, accurately scaled set of plans showing the actual width of the roadway and the location of all structures.  With that in hand, the public can then gauge the actual size of this proposed freeway widening, and know whether it can trust ODOT’s claims about its impacts.

A short history of ODOT’s Deceptions

We raised this issue at City Observatory, and it was also included in official comments in response to the EIS (March 2019), and in formal testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission (April 2019).  In response, ODOT said nothing.

In November 2020, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration published a “Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact” or as its known in the trade a FONSI, essentially denying that the project had any environmental effects worth worrying about.  That document, and related supporting materials still failed to answer the basic question about the width of the freeway.

So, on December 1, 2020, I appeared (virtually) before the Oregon Transportation Commission, and again asked them to answer this very basic question (as well as several others).  Members of the Commission directed their staff to meet with me, which we did, again virtually, on December 16, 2020.

The December 2020 “meeting” was an extremely stilted, and one-sided conversation because the ODOT staff in attendance (nine in total), declined to answer any questions during the meeting. Instead, they simply took notes, and said they would respond, later, in writing.

On January 14, ODOT sent their response.  Here, is there response to the question about the width of the freeway.

As you can see, there’s not a single number present.  This, for the record, is an agency that has spent several years, and tens of millions of dollars planning and designing this project, and yet wouldn’t answer this basic question.  And just for clarity about the level of detail of those planning efforts, the agency said with some certainty that it would need to take a couple hundred square feet of on hotel parking lot (the area of one good sized bedroom or one smallish living room), as part of the freeway right of way.

So, how wide is it?

In a separate e-mail to me, ODOT’s Brendan Finn, head of the Office of Urban Mobility that supervises the project, said:

“Regarding the “width of the built right-of-way of the Rose Quarter project, . . . I believe you received a response to the width of the Rose Quarter Project, it being within the EA document.”
(Finn to Cortright, February 12, 2021)

In an email to Willamette Week reporter Rachel Monahan, on January 22, one of ODOT’s public affairs persons said:

“Yes, the right of way as stated in the Environmental Assessment is 126 feet.

For your reference, Figure 2-4, located on page 10 within the Project Description of the February 2019 Environmental Assessment, available at https://www.i5rosequarter.org/library/, illustrates the proposed lane configuration which includes an inside and outside shoulder, two through lanes, and one auxiliary lane for the highway in each direction. All shoulders and lanes are 12 feet wide. The anticipated right of way would also provide the opportunity for bus on shoulder use and the space needed for fire, life, and safety requirements and provisions under the highway covers.”

None of this, of course, was actually true.  City Observatory obtained three different sets of documents prepared by ODOT contractors showing the actual width of the roadway to be approximately 150 to 160 feet.  As early as 2016, the project’s contractors drew up plans for a 160 foot roadway–something that was never disclosed publicly by IBR, but which we obtained via a Federal Freedom of Information Act request.  One of the project’s consultant’s drew up a landscape plan for freeway covers, clearly showing at 150 plus roadway (the contractor deleted this image from her website after we published this at City Observatory).  Finally, CAD drawings prepared by the project, obtained by public records request show a 160 foot wide roadway.

What this really means is that the I-5 Rose Quarter project is easily large enough to include a ten-lane freeway.  Here, we’ve adjusted the diagram contained in the original ODOT Environmental Assessment to accurately reflect the number of travel lanes that could be accommodated in a 160 foot roadway.  This illustration contains generous inside and outside shoulders, as well as full 12-foot travel lanes.  (Ironically, ODOT’s own design for the southern portion of the Rose Quarter project calls for 11-foot travel lanes on the viaduct section of I-5 near the Burnside Bridge).

ODOT’s Supplemental Environmental Analysis shows it has no plans for doing anything on its vaunted freeway covers

It left the description of cover’s post-construction use as “XXX facilities” in the final, official Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

The report makes it clear that “restorative justice” is still just a vapid slogan at the Oregon Department of Transportation.

In theory, the Oregon Department of Transportation is proposing to spend $1.45 billion on freeway covers to somehow repair the damage it did when highways it built largely destroyed the Albina neighborhood in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

ODOT has invested considerable resources in creating the fiction that highway covers will the the ideal environment for new development.  Never mind the agency isn’t planning to contribute a dime toward building anything on said covers, even though its highways directly destroyed hundreds of neighborhood homes, which it never replaced.

It should be clear to anyone watching that talk of developing the covers is purely a woke-washing ploy:  The agency’s real agenda is a wider highway.  Last year, it sent a typo-ridden mailer to thousands of North and Northeast Portland households featuring a purely fictional “Workforce Development Center” built by African-American Artisans–which doesn’t exist and isn’t a part of the project at all.  Other planning documents have illustrated imaginary housing that might be built (if somebody other than ODOT pays for it). There’s abundant evidence that, beyond fictional illustrations, OregonDOT doesn’t really care about the covers or what happens on them.  It’s designed a roadway so wide that on most of the covers, it will be impossible to building anything other than a “lightweight” building, no more than three-stories tall.  And, as noted, somebody else will have to pay for those buildings.

The latest bit of evidence of ODOT’s profound indifference is in its recently published “Supplemental Environmental Assessment.”  Turn to the “Right of Way” report that is one of the project’s attachments. This is an extremely detailed document which lists every square foot of property that will be acquired for the project (or which will have even a temporary easement associated with construction).  At the very end of the document (page 26 of 28-pages) , ODOT speaks to what will happen on those very expensive covers it develops.

This public review document has a highlighted section which somebody forgot to finish editing that explained what ODOT would do “as an interim measure” when the project is completed.  Whatever these “xxx facilities” are, we can only guess, but it’s apparent that even after years of touting the covers, ODOT has no idea, and certainly no plans to do anything meaningful on the highway covers.  Keep in mind:  This is the official Supplemental Environmental Assessment, not some working draft.

The preceding paragraph of the section quoted above makes it clear that ODOT has no intention to develop this property, and it is not going to be a picnic for anyone else, either.  ODOT would continue to own the cover, and would insist on some vaguely described air rights and lease agreements.  It also makes it clear that some additional regulatory processes, including further review under the National Environmental Policy Act would likely apply as well.  Developing this property will be vastly more expensive and complex than developing property elsewhere in the neighborhood.

In short, ODOT has no plans to construct covers that will support significant buildings, no plans for any meaningful use of the covers after the highway is complete, and no funding for it (or anyone else) to develop anything on the highway covers.  And if somebody else does have an idea, they’ll have to pursue it with their own money, and they’d better bring lots of lawyers, because it’s not going to be easy.  In the meantime, Albina, enjoy your “XXX facilities”—we’re sure they’ll be special.

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 highway design standards
• result in trucks turning into adjacent lanes and forcing cars onto highway shoulders
• necessitate a 1,000 foot long “storage area” to handle cars exiting the freeway
• require even wider, more expensive freeway covers that will be less buildable

A project that ODOT has falsely billed as a “safety” project—based on a high number of fender benders—actually stands to create a truly dangerous new freeway off-ramp, and at the same time vastly increase the cost of the project, while making it harder to build on the project’s much ballyhooed freeway covers.

Earlier, we revealed that the redesign of Oregon DOT’s proposed $1.45 billion Rose Quarter Freeway widening project will a hazardous new hairpin off-ramp from Interstate 5, endangering cyclists.

The safety analysis for the project’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement confirms our concerns that ODOT is building a “Deadman’s Curve” off-ramp:  The agency estimates the new ramp will increase crashes 13 percent compared to the No-build, and that the design of the off-ramp violates ODOT’s own Highway Design Manual.

As part of its redesign of the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway project, ODOT has moved the Southbound off-ramp from I-5, which is now located just North of NE Broadway, to an area just next to the Moda Center, and immediately north of the existing I-5 south on-ramp.  The new ramp fits awkwardly into the existing street grid, and the most troublesome feature is a  hairpin turn for traffic exiting the freeway:  I-5 traffic traveling southbound and leaving the freeway has to do a tight 210 degree turn onto Northbound Williams Avenue.  The proposed off-ramp would have two lanes of freeway traffic negotiating the hairpin turn on to N. Williams Avenue (shown as green arrows in this diagram).

Just a week ago we wrote a scathing critique of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s proposed redesign of the I-5 Rose Quarter project.  The agency is building a new and dangerous off-ramp, that creates a hairpin turn on a freeway exit, funnels traffic across a major bike route, and causes longer travel on local streets.  That’s pretty bad.

But the reality is much worse.  Don’t take our word for it.  Take ODOT’s.  Though its shrouded in intentionally opaque bureaucratic language, it’s clear that the engineers at OregonDOT know this is a very unsafe project.  And not just unsafe for bikes and pedestrians on local streets:  the new ramp configuration creates a dangerous, and higher crash rate facility for cars and trucks

The agency’s safety analysis is contained in a technical safety report, dated, August 15, 2022, but publicly released just last week.  It is worth quoting at length:

Under the HSM method, the number of crashes which may occur on a ramp is sensitive to geometric conditions, traffic volume, and length of the ramp. There are no major changes in geometry in the I-5 southbound exit ramp between the No-Build and Build conditions, hence they have similar forecast crash rates. However, as proposed in the Revised Build Alternative, relocating the I-5 southbound exit-ramp connection to the local system from N Broadway to NE Wheeler Avenue would increase the ramp length from approximately 1,000 feet in the No-Build conditions to approximately 2,000 feet in the Revised Build conditions, which would provide 1,000 feet of additional traffic queue storage. The new ramp design also includes wider shoulders than existing conditions. Based on the HSM, the forecast crash rate at this location would be approximately 13 % higher than the No-Build and Build condition. In the HSM, the number of crashes on a facility is highly sensitive to volume and length. As the length of this ramp increases, the forecast number of crashes increases and therefore so too does the crash rate. However, from a traffic operation perspective, the additional storage on the I-5 southbound exit-ramp would reduce the potential for queue spill-back onto the freeway. Under the No-Build Alternative, queue on the exit ramp is expected to propagate upstream onto the freeway mainline, creating a safety concern. The additional storage provided in the Revised Build Alternative would be able to accommodate the queue on the ramp without encroaching onto the freeway. This is particularly beneficial during peak hours and event conditions. In addition, the lengthening of the ramp will allow motorist to decelerate to a safer speed allowing them to safely navigate through the horizontal curve.

The final 250 feet of this ramp includes a horizontal curve prior to the ramp terminal intersection. The proposed curve would not meet ODOT’s HDM minimum radius for exit ramp curves and could also result in truck off tracking that extends outside of a standard travel lane. Therefore, to mitigate these considerations, the design detail of this curve would include wider shoulders and lanes than other sections of the ramp. Adequate delineation, signing, markings and lighting to inform drivers of the sharp curve as they approach the ramp terminal intersection would also be considered. These design treatments would be refined in the design process as the project proceeds. Figure 11 shows the existing N Williams Avenue/ NE Wheeler Avenue/ N Ramsay Way intersection and the lane configuration for the proposed I-5 southbound terminal.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and it’s written in a way as to be opaque and misleading.  Let us translate it into English:

• We’re building a freeway off-ramp with an extreme (210 degree) hairpin turn (“the final 250 feet . . . includes a horizontal curve”).
• That’s going to increase the number of crashes by 13 percent above doing nothing, and our previous design.
• The hairpin turn and crashes will cause traffic to back up on the freeway off-ramp and could jam the freeway, but don’t worry, because we’ve doubled the length of off-ramp (from 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet) so that it will be long enough to serve as a parking lot for those exiting the freeway (“queue on the exit ramp . . . additional storage”)
• The turn is so tight that trucks can’t negotiate it without crossing out of their lane, but don’t worry, because the shoulders will be wide, giving cars plenty of room to dodge wide-turning trucks.  “truck off tracking . . outside a standard travel lane”
• The hairpin turn is so severe that it violates our agency’s own standards for road design (the same standards we use to refuse to build bike lanes and provide pedestrian access). (“does not meet ODOT’s HDM minimum radius for exit ramp curves.”)
• We know the hairpin turn is dangerous, so we’ll think about putting in big warning signs and flashing lights. “Adequate delineation . . . to inform drivers . . .would be considered”).

More Dangerous, More Expensive, and Less Buildable

And there’s one more kicker that isn’t really mentioned here.  Because the I-5 southbound ramp is now Nouth of Broadway and Weidler, moving the ramp South requires that the freeway be widened even further to provide two ramp lanes that reach all the way to NE Wheeler and the MODA center.  Those lanes now have to go underneath Broadway and Weidler.  That means that the additional one-thousand feet of off-ramp length would mostly be underneath one of ODOT’s much ballyhooed highway caps.  In the diagram below, the two extended Southbound on-ramps are shown on the far left (with turquoise cars).

The proposed cost of the Rose Quarter project has tripled to nearly $1.45 billion, chiefly because of ODOT’s additional widening and the concomitant escalation in the cost of freeway caps. The caps are extraordinarily expensive, and their expense increases exponentially with added width.  Routing two thousand-foot long on-ramps under the structure increases the needed with of the structure by at least 30 feet, and likely more.  And that not only increases its cost, but the added width of the structure makes it more difficult to build a structure that could accommodate buildings.  (As we noted earlier, ODOT says this portion of the freeway caps could handle buildings no higher than three stories (and such buildings would have to be “lightweight.”)

We have rules against such things: but they don’t apply to us.

The safety report makes a cryptic reference to something called the “HDM”: saying the dangerous hairpin turn “does not meet ODOT’s HDM minimum radius for exit ramp curves.”  The “HDM” is Oregon’s Highway Design Manual that specifies all of the standards that govern the construction of major roadways and which sets the maximum radius of turns on roadways and off-ramps.  For obvious reasons, tight-corners and blind turns create serious safety hazards.  Freeway design standards are supposed to create roadways where crashes are less likely.  ODOT is proposing to simply ignore its own rules and build this dangerous on-ramp.

ODOT can’t even apply its standards consistently.  It asserts for example that it must build “full 12-foot” shoulders on much of the Rose Quarter project, ostensibly to improve safety.  But its design manual doesn’t require such wide shoulders, and in fact, the agency has gotten recognition from the Federal Highway Administration for its policies that allow narrower shoulders on Portland-area freeways.  In the same breath it touts widening shoulders (not required by its rules) as a safety measure, it gives itself an exemption from its own rules that explicitly prohibit dangerous hairpin turns on freeway off-ramps.

Transportation agencies routinely use their design manuals and similar rules to prohibit others from doing things.  We can’t build a crosswalk or a bike lane in that location, because it would violate our design manual.  That’s the end of a lot of safety improvements.  Just last week, in Seattle, the city transportation department had dawdled for years with an application to a paint a crosswalk at a dangerous local intersection, acted overnight to erase one painted by fed-up local neighbors–citing non-compliance with similar rules.

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 will have to negotiate on Portland’s busy North Williams bikeway will have to negotiate two back-to-back freeway ramps that carry more than 20,000 cars per day.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is moving forward with plans to issue a  Revised Environmental Assessment (EA) for the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening, a $1.45 billion project pitched as “safety” project and “restorative justice” for the Albina neighborhood.

The revised assessment was required in part because community opponents, led by No More Freeways, prevailed in a lawsuit challenging the project’s original environmental assessment; the project’s earlier “Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was withdrawn by the Federal Highway Administration).

We’ve obtained an advanced copy of the Revised EA, and while it shows expanded freeway covers—it’s also clear that ODOT is backing away from doing anything to assure development.  And in expanding the covers, the project has created an entirely new, and hazardous freeway off-ramp.

To expand the covers, ODOT has moved the Southbound off-ramp from I-5, which is now located just North of NE Broadway, to an area just next to the Moda Center, and immediately north of the existing I-5 south on-ramp.  The new ramp fits awkwardly into the existing street grid, and the most troublesome feature is a  hairpin turn for traffic exiting the freeway:  I-5 traffic traveling southbound and leaving the freeway has to do a tight 210 degree turn onto Northbound Williams Avenue.  The proposed off-ramp would have two lanes of freeway traffic negotiating the hairpin turn on to N. Williams Avenue (shown as green arrows in this diagram).

Could this become “Deadman’s Curve?” The mainline stem of I-5 has a design speed of 70 miles per hour, and the off ramp would force traffic to slow to 25 miles per hour (or less) to make the u-turn on to Williams.  Traffic exiting the freeway crosses a bike lane running along the west side of Williams Avenue (illustrated with red outlines on the diagram).

A similar low speed, hairpin exit ramp from the I-5 freeway in downtown Seattle has been the scene of a series of repeated and spectacular crashes, as documented on Youtube.

A hazard for people walking and biking.

The new Southbound off-ramp abuts an existing Southbound on-ramp at the intersection of Williams Avenue and Wheeler Street.  Williams Avenue is a major bike route from downtown to North Portland, and a bike lane runs along Williams, and would cross both these ramps.  The new configuration creates a traffic maelstrom at the intersection of Wheeler, Williams and the I-5 southbound on- and off-ramps.

At one point cyclists and pedestrians will have “refuge” on a tiny triangular island wedged in between a double-lane I-5 Southbound off-ramp (12,500 vehicles per day) and a double-lane I-5 Southbound on-ramp (9,000 vehicles per day).  On one side, they’ll have cars crossing Williams Avenue and accelerating on to the freeway, and on the other side, they’ll have cars coming off the freeway to negotiate the hairpin turn through the intersection on to Williams Avenue.  Green arrows show lanes of traffic entering and leaving the i-5 freeway.  White dots show the path of the bike route.  The red triangle at the center is the cyclists tenuous traffic refuge.

The Oregon DOT’s Revised EA claims that the project will make conditions better for bikes and pedestrians “on the covers”—but not necessarily elsewhere.  The Rose Quarter project website claims:

Relocating the I-5 southbound off-ramp will reduce interactions between vehicles exiting I-5 and people walking, rolling and biking along local streets on the highway cover.

Notice the qualifier here “on the highway cover.”  What this statement leaves out is the fact that the relocation of the off-ramp will dramatically increase interactions between vehicles and people on streets away from the cover, particularly and Williams and Wheeler.  The new combination of on- and off-ramps here will create many more dangerous interactions, especially for cyclists on Williams Avenue, something that the ODOT Environmental Assessment fails to acknowledge.

The I-5 Rose Quarter project is advertised by ODOT as a “safety” project:  People cycling through this maelstrom of freeway-bound traffic may not agree.

Thanks to Bike Portland for its extensive coverage of the bike and pedestrian problems associated with the Rose Quarter re-design.

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 Department of Transportation has published a technical manual banning the consideration of induced travel in Oregon highway projects.

The Oregon Department of Transportation wants to pretend that induced travel doesn’t exist.  Using federal funds, it has written a new handbook on how to plan for highways that makes some preposterous and undocumented claims about the induced travel.  It explicitly prohibits planners and consultants from using peer-reviewed, scientifically based tools, like the Induced Travel Calculator, developed by the University of California Sustainable Transportation Center, and mandated by the California Department of Transportation for the analysis of the environmental effects of freeways.

The tortured denial by the Oregon Department of Transportation engages in some blatant sophistry that tries to create a false distinction between “latent” demand and “induced demand.”  If we just call it “latent demand” then somehow it doesn’t count.

Turn to page 6-79 of ODOT’s newly published “Analysis Procedures Manual“.  The APM is a technical guide to using traffic data to plan future roadways.   Here you find a red-bordered text box with a bold graphic STOP sign, explicitly banning planners and analysts from using the induced travel calculator.  “The use of these calculator types shall not be used to estimate induced and latent demand effects on ODOT-funded projects . . . ”

This kind of foot-stomping, hand-waving denial is reminiscent of the Catholic church’s harrumphing denials of Copernicus and Galileo’s observations of the universe. But induced travel is extremely well-established science, and Oregon DOT shows itself to be modern day a flat-earth science denier.

What the Scientific Literature Shows

The economic and scientific literature on induced travel is unambiguous:  Increasing road capacity, by whatever means, lowers the perceived cost of driving and results in more travel.  The phenomenon is now so well-established that its called the “Fundamental Law of Road Congestion.”

The economics are straightforward: expanding the supply of highways lowers the cost of driving, and faced with a lower cost of driving, people drive more.  In this classic diagram, the supply curve shifts outward (to the right) lowering the cost of driving and increasing the number of miles driven.

The best available science shows that this generated travel follows a unit elasticity:  a one percent increase in roadway capacity creates a one percent increase in vehicle miles traveled.  To claim otherwise is to simply be in denial about the fundamental economics of the price elasticity of demand:  lowering the price of something (in this case the time cost of using a particular roadway) tends to increase the volume consumed.

There have been numerous studies which have all reached similar conclusions about the empirical nature of this relationship.  Two of the leading scholars on the subject, the University of California’s Susan Handy and James Volker present a meta-analysis of studies of induced travel.  Their results are summarized on the following table.  In studies in the US and in other developed countries, there’s a strong and consistent relationship between expanded roadways and additional travel.  In the long run, estimates of the elasticity of induced travel are around 1.0, meaning that a one percent increase in road capacity tends to lead to a one percent increase in vehicle miles traveled.

The authoritative Traffic Engineering Handbook summarizes the literature on induced demand as follows:

. . . the long-run elasticities of VMT with respect to road space is generally 0.5 to 1.0 after controlling for population growth and income, with values of almost 1.0, suggesting that new road space is totally filled by generated traffic where congestion is relatively severe.

Kara Kockelman (2011), “Traffic Congestion,” Chapter 22, Transportation Engineering Handbook, McGraw Hill .

ODOT asserts that it can ignore all this literature.  ODOT argues, in essence, that even thought the consensus is for a unit elasticity, that here in Oregon, contra all this published literature, it believes the real coefficient of these equations is zero:  that a one percent increase in roadway capacity would lead to no increase whatsoever in travel demand.  In essence, the ODOT Analysis Methods Manual tells planners to ignore induced demand entirely.

Latent demand is induced demand.

The apparent justification for this conclusion is that there’s something called “latent” demand that’s different from “induced” demand.

Oregon DOT falsely claims that there is a difference between “latent” demand and “induced” demand.  Here’s what they are saying…

Latent Demand – this is demand for transportation that consumers do not utilize because they cannot afford the cost or it is not currently available. Latent demand responses are typically associated with network limitations, such as capacity constraints . . . Latent demand does not include induced demand.

Induced demand – new demand for travel that did not exist prior to the build scenario. This is above and beyond forecasted and latent demand associated with planned land use, it is demand that is the result of changes in land use (zone changes) or economic conditions that create new trips.

(ODOT Analysis Procedures Manual, June 2022, emphasis added).

Denying that “latent” demand is induced demand is not supported in the literature.  No other study uses these terms in this fashion, or makes this distinction between “induced” and “latent” demand.  This is ODOT’s Through the Looking Glass moment:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.”

Ben and Jerry observe the latent demand for ice cream every year when they drop the price of a cone to zero, and people line up around the block.  These are all people who would love to have ice cream, if only it were free.  The lines around the block are “induced ice cream eating”, as the zero price of ice cream converts “latent demand” into “actual demand.”

But we know empirically that travel changes rapidly in response to available highway capacity.  That’s true both in the case of expansions and contractions in capacity.  People rapidly and radically change their travel distances and trip making in response to changes in capacity.  Predicted “carmaggedons” in the face of reductions of capacity from bridge closures, highway collapses, construction projects, demolitions of highways, and other similar events cause traffic disappearance.

Ultimately, this is pure sophistry:  Whether you call it “latent” demand or “induced” demand, the effects are exactly the same:  Adding more capacity to existing roadways increases the volume of vehicle travel.

Oregon’s Analysis Procedures Manual vs. California’s Transportation Analysis Framework

While OregonDOT has just published its “Analysis Procedures Manual” banning the use of induced travel calculators, its California counterpart, Caltrans has published guidelines that require the use of such a calculator to highway projects in the Golden State.  What leads one state DOT to require the calculator, while the other bans it.  Who is right?

Let’s consider the processes and documentation that went into the CalTrans and ODOT publications.  CalTrans adopted its Framework after a years-long study and review effort.  It brought in outside experts, it conducted and published a thorough literature review, and the Framework itself was the subject of public meetings.  As the Framework document explains:

Caltrans convened an expert panel of academics and practitioners through UC Berkeley Tech Transfer. The panel chair presented the group’s conclusions to stakeholders at a virtual Technical Roundtable prior to finalizing the group’s recommendations. Caltrans and State partners have accepted the panel’s recommendations, which are reflected in the guidance documents.

In contrast, the Oregon Manual has no identified author, cites no academic literature, has not been subject to outside review by persons independent from the Oregon Department of Transportation.  It is an unsubstantiated, unscientific polemic.

It’s also possible (and indeed likely) that even without changes in land use, households and businesses will sort themselves differently among the existing stock of land and buildings.  If travel is fast and free, people may choose to live at housing a great distance from their jobs (or conversely, commute to jobs at great distance from their homes).  If travel is slower or more expensive, they may seek housing nearer their job, or look for jobs only closer to home in order to minimize the time and money costs of travel.  The redistribution of population and employment among existing buildings in response to changes in travel costs is something that ODOT denies is even possible.

What’s deeply ironic about the denial of induced demand is that highway departments have been counting on it to create an unending demand for their services for decades.  Building more and wider roads has led to more driving and more car ownership, which has jammed existing roads to capacity, and led to calls for further widening.  It’s a Sisyphean cycle that leads to ever more traffic and ever more spending on roads, which is just what highway departments and their vendors want.

Induced Demand and Land Use Changes

As Litman points out there are first-, second-, third- and fourth-order effects from highway capacity increases.   Initially travel times get faster (first order). That prompts people to change whether, when, where and by what means they travel.( second order).  The shift in travel patterns and accessibility may then prompt changes in land use (third order).  Finally, the cumulative effect of a shift to sprawl and greater auto dependence may further amplify trip taking (fourth-order).

Roadway expansion impacts tend to include:

First order. Reduced congestion delay, increased traffic speeds. 

Second order. Changes in time, route, destination and mode.

Third order. Land use changes. More dispersed, automobile-oriented development. 

Fourth order. Overall increase in automobile dependency. Degraded walking and cycling conditions (due to wider roads and increased traffic volumes), reduced public transit service (due to reduced demand and associated scale economies, sometimes called the Downs-Thomson paradox), and social stigma associated with alternative modes.

The ODOT view is that the “second order” effects—changing times, routes, additional trip taking, and more miles traveled—somehow don’t count as “induced travel” if no changes in land use happen.  Or, alternatively, if that travel is accurately predicted by a traffic model or anticipated in a plan (i.e. “above and beyond forecasted”) , that it also doesn’t count.

The Land Use Red Herring

But let’s have a look at the second part of the argument:  That the transportation agency can ignore that part of induced demand that results from land use changes in response to the expansion of roadways, and that somehow, because Oregon has a system of land use planning that those effects simply don’t occur here.  ODOT’s rhetorical position is that “Induced demand” can only occur in response to land use changes, and land use changes are impossible under Oregon’s land use system.

The Oregon Department of Transportation likes to pretend that the only form of induced travel that is real is that which accompanies changes in land use.  And they argue that because Oregon has strict land use laws, that investments in travel infrastructure can’t produce changes in land use.

In general, Oregon faces low risk related to induced demand because of the state’s strong land use laws, which exist to prevent sprawl. Changes to land use must be approved by local jurisdictions, so a facility project cannot induce demand just by itself.

ODOT’s reasoning is this:  Induced demand only occurs when there is a land use change that necessitates a change in a land use plan.  Because Oregon has land use plans, transportation projects somehow can’t create induced demand. This reasoning is wrong for two reasons:  First, as we’ve already explained, “latent” demand–changes in transportation behavior in response to a capacity increase–can happen even without any change in land use, and this “latent” demand is, according to all the scientific literature “induced demand.”  The second reason is that Oregon’s land use law doesn’t prevent or preclude changes in land use in response to changes in transportation infrastructure.

What this misses is that the land use system is a permissive framework, and within that legal framework many possible patterns of population and employment are possible.   For example, new housing can be built in infill locations (near transit, and proximate to more jobs) or it can be built at the urban periphery.  Both outcomes are possible under the Oregon land use system.  The key point about induced demand is that more investment in transportation infrastructure will make lower density, more far flung development even more attractive.  And, importantly, a significant part of the demand for Oregon roadways comes from places not subject to the Oregon land use system (i.e. suburban Clark County Washington).  Investing in more transportation capacity across the Columbia River will facilitate more low density sprawl in Washington, and added automobile trips on the I-5 and I-205 bridges as large fractions of these suburban and exurban households live and shop in Oregon.

A lobbying campaign to deny induced demand

There’s little question that ODOT officials are uncomfortable with the science of induced travel.  And they’re eager to do anything they can to minimize or misrepresent or discredit the application of this scientific fact to transportation planning.  For example, in 2021, ODOT sought funding through AASHTO (the lobbying organization of state highway agencies) to get a project funded to dispute induced demand.  Bike Portland reported that its proposal made it clear that the agency was primarily interested in generating talking points to push back against application of induced demand to metro area freeway expansion projects.

“While the road building era of the 1950s freeway networks is essentially complete, even minor strategies and investment intended to optimize existing roadway system assets are increasingly facing opposition in the name of “induced demand”…”

Even as it is busily ignoring or denying the science of induced travel, the Oregon Department of Transportation regularly repeats the discredited myth that idling in traffic is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions that can be reduced by widening roadways.

Traffic Projections that Deny Induced Travel Lack Scientific Integrity

To the extent that ODOT’s guidance limits what is included in a federally required environmental impact statement, it’s steadfast refusal to cite any sources for its claims, and its consistent ignorance of published scientific literature on induced travel constitutes a violation of the scientific integrity requirements of NEPA.

§ 1502.23 Methodology and scientific accuracy.

Agencies shall ensure the professional integrity, including scientific integrity, of the discussions and analyses in environmental documents. Agencies shall make use of reliable existing data and resources. Agencies may make use of any reliable data sources, such as remotely gathered information or statistical models. They shall identify any methodologies used and shall make explicit reference to the scientific and other sources relied upon for conclusions in the statement. Agencies may place discussion of methodology in an appendix. Agencies are not required to undertake new scientific and technical research to inform their analyses. Nothing in this section is intended to prohibit agencies from compliance with the requirements of other statutes pertaining to scientific and technical research.

Chuck Marohn, writing at Strong Towns explains that traffic engineers treat travel demand as a fixed and immutable quantity–they’ve build models and a world view that pretends that people will travel just as much whether they build a project or not.  This view helps justify building ever more roads, but doesn’t reflect reality and ought to be treated as professional malpractice:

The concept of “travel demand” is where traffic engineers have stunted their own intellectual development more than perhaps anywhere else. And they’ve done so for two reasons. First, it makes their models easier to run. It’s really difficult (impossible, really) to create models that factor in the behavioral responses of humans. Better to just assume a static level of demand, even though that assumption is a farce (remember, traffic models are all about justifying projects, not actually modeling what is going on in the world).

Second, it allows traffic planners and engineers to position themselves and their craft as responding to demand, not creating it. That’s an important distinction because it allows them to be confident in what they do without having to struggle with the underlying reasons that things aren’t working.  . . .

Engineering in the auto age is about building—build, build, build—and not about optimizing or managing systems. When your ethos is merely to build more stuff, you develop myths and models that support that ethos. That’s what you’re seeing in the patently absurd assertion that additional capacity does not generate more trips. . . .

In 2022, denying how highway expansions induce people to drive more should be considered professional malpractice.

US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg clearly endorses the science of induced demand.  In a recent television interview, Buttigieg told Chris Wallace:

. . . here’s an entire science to this. And we have a lot of research partners. We have our own research institution called the Volpe Institute, which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. . . . one of the challenges we have right now is you got more and more people in the country more and more people on the road. Just how to be smart about that. For example,it turns out that sometimes when you just want to get a lot of traffic on the roadway, and you just added lanes to it, all you get is more traffic, because it actually makes more people want to drive on that road and then you’re right back where you were.

“You’re kind of a nerd, aren’t you.” Pete Buttigieg explains traffic, and it actually makes sense. This man is going to be president one day. pic.twitter.com/fbW5qqAp10

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 30, 2022

The real expense of the $5 billion I-5 bridge replacement project isn’t actually building a new bridge over the Columbia River:  It’s widening miles of freeway and rebuilding every intersection north and south of the river.  A decade ago, an independent panel of experts convened by OR and WA governor’s strongly recommended to ODOR and WSDOT that they eliminate one or more intersections.

The panel concluded that 70 percent of the cost of the project was rebuilding 7 interchanges in five miles.

The experts told ODOT and WSDOT that project interchange spacing violates both federal and state design standards.

The expert panel concluded that eliminating interchanges would reduce project cost, improve safety, and improve traffic flow.

Failing to look at removing or simplifying intersections after getting this expert advice is arbitrary and capricious; ODOT and WSDOT are violating the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement that they take a hard look at reasonable alternatives

Bridge Review Panel:  A totally new bridge design; eliminate interchanges

Today’s “Interstate Bridge Replacement” project is a warmed-over version of the failed Columbia River Crossing of a decade ago.  Like the current effort, the CRC was controversial and highly criticized.  The Governors of Oregon and Washington intervened and appointed to special, independent review panels of national experts, both of which spotted errors in project.  The first, a 2010 Independent Review Panel, determined that ODOT and WSDOT’s proposed “open-web” design for the river crossing was “unbuildable.”  That led the two governors to appoint another panel, the bridge review panel, to come up with an alternative design.  That panel, also chaired by Tom Warne, issued its 146-page report in 2011.

In addition, to coming up with a buildable bridge design, the Bridge Review Panel recommended that reducing and simplifying the number of interchanges in the project area, rather than repeating and expanding each of the existing interchanges would reduce costs, and make the project function better.  Their comments are worth quoting at length:

The panel concluded that improvements to the functionality of the overall roadway network in the project limits should address urban design issues. The use of a collector/distributor system was found to be unworkable, but reducing and simplifying the number of interchanges would significantly improve both functionality and cost.

Substandard Interchange Spacing and Project Impacts

In the project corridor, seven interchanges in less than five miles results in interchange spacing that does not meet state or federal minimum requirements of one mile for interstates in urban areas. In some circumstances, interchange spacing is half the minimum required. It is not unusual in urban areas to have substandard interchange spacing. However, it is unprecedented that all seven interchanges on a project corridor have less than minimum spacing. Not only are safety and operations an issue, more than 70 percent of the project budget is associated with these interchanges. Minimum interchange spacing is necessary for operational efficiency and user safety. Substandard interchange spacing in the project corridor can be expected to negatively impact both. Interchanges adjacent to the Columbia River and North Portland Harbor also increase environmental impacts and detract from the visual quality of the shoreline and the character of a signature bridge.

It is the view of the panel that some consolidation of the interchanges on the project corridor is warranted. This consolidation would have the following direct benefits to the project:

With respect to interchange spacing, the panel offers the following secondary recommendation:

Not just forgetful:  Arbitrary, capricious and a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act

ODOT claims that its policy is “fix-it first” maintaining the highway system.

But it is spending vastly less on maintenance and restoration than is needed to keep roads and bridges from deteriorating

It blames the Legislature for not prioritizing repair over new construction

But it chooses to advance policies that prioritize spending money on new construction ahead of maintenance

It diverts funds that could be used for maintenance to pay for cost overruns on capital construction projects.

ODOT pleads its maintenance backlog as a “bait and switch” to get more revenue that it then spends on capital construction rather than fixing roads

A proclaimed “Fix-It First” policy.

The Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) which directs the activities of the Oregon Department of Transportation, has clearly claimed to prioritize maintenance.  In its 2020 Investment Strategy, OTC proclaims it prioritizes maintenance of existing roads:

Oregon is a fix-it first state. The Oregon Transportation Plan and Oregon Highway Plan focus on preserving the system; highway improvements are focused on enhancing efficiency and the capacity of existing facilities rather than building new ones. . . . Funding to preserve state highway assets is not adequate, resulting in a triage approach to preservation, rehabilitation, and repair, and maintaining status quo conditions requires more than doubling current funding.

The Oregon Transportation Commission has adopted the Oregon Highway Plan’s policy 1G for Major Improvements which says it will prioritize maintaining the highway system over expanding capacity.

A huge and growing maintenance backlog

So how is Oregon doing in implementing this policy:  Every report and inventory from ODOT shows that we have a major maintenance gap, and it’s getting worse.

ODOT’s June 2022 federally required Transportation Asset Management Plan (TAMP) reports that Oregon is spending $329 million annually less than is needed to keep roads and bridge at their current state of repair>  The state is spending less than half of what it would need to ($156 million of an estimated $320 million) just to “maintain current conditions” of Oregon bridges.  It is also spending only about 40 percent of what it needs to retain existing conditions on Oregon roads ($112 million of an estimated annual need of $273 million).  Bridges would require an additional 164 million and roads an additional $165 million, each year, in order to simply maintain current conditions.

ODOT’s Investment Strategy, adopted in 2020 admits it is dramatically underspending on maintenance, and that Oregon roads and bridges will deteriorate.  The state has other manifold needs that aren’t funded.

• ODOT’s plans say we need to spend $5.1 billion seismically retrofitting hundreds of Oregon Bridges:  It currently has funding for just 30 of 183 high priority “Phase I” bridges–the balance are unfunded.
• ODOT says we need to be spending $50 million per year to achieve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act on Oregon highways
• ODOT says we need to be spending $53 million per year to provide or repair walking and biking facilities along state highways.

In the face of a tight budget, ODOT has chosen to cut its operations and maintenance, but still expects an even larger shortfall.  In the years ahead.  ODOT’s January 2022 Budget Outlook predicted a widening budget shortfall:

ODOT now projects that the funding gap has shrunk to $144 million in 2027,   due to stronger revenue growth and larger fiscal year 2021 ending balances through budget discipline. However, revenues and expenditures remain out of alignment, and without additional revenue or expenditure reductions the gap will grow quickly. By 2029 the gap is projected to grow to $515 million.

In short, we’re not spending enough to maintain the current system, we’re cutting operation and maintenance budgets and are facing an even larger shortfall in maintenance funding in the years ahead.  And in the face of this, ODOT is marching forward with unfunded plans for huge construction projects that will plunge the state into debt for decades.

Blaming the Legislature

ODOT blames the Legislature for this policy choice.  In a 2020 memo to employees, published by the Oregonian, ODOT Director Kris Strickler says the reason the agency has to slash operating costs and maintenance is because the Legislature short-changed the agency.  Here’s the Oregonian’s coverage:

“Many will wonder how ODOT can face a shortfall of operating funding after the recent passage of the largest transportation investment package in the state’s history,” Kris Strickler, the agency’s director, said in a Wednesday email to employees, stakeholders and other groups, citing the 2017 Legislature’s historic $5.3 billion transportation bill. “The reality is that virtually all of the funding from HB 2017 and other recent transportation investment packages was directed by law to the transportation system rather than to cover the agency’s operating costs and maintenance.”

The public and likely the Legislature will be surprised to know that “directing money by law to the transportation system” somehow precludes ODOT from spending money to maintain those roads.  The truth is that ODOT’s deceptive cost estimates and discretionary reallocation of funds are really what’s short-changing operations and maintenance.

Constantly proposing new construction and under-estimating its cost

While ODOT blames the Legislature, it is the agency advancing hugely expensive new capacity projects, including the I-5 Rose Quarter (1.45 billion), I-5 Bridge Replacement/freeway widening ($5 billion+), I-205 Abernethy Bridge ($700 million) and Boone Bridge (not revealed).

The Legislature approves these projects based on cost estimates provided by ODOT and then ODOT treats this as a mandate to pay whatever cost-overruns the project incurs.  In the case of the I-5 Rose Quarter project, the Legislature was told it would cost $450 million in 2017; the current price tag is now estimated at as much as $1.45 billion.  ODOT told the Legislature the I-205 Abernethy Bridge would cost $250 million; its price tag has doubled to nearly $500 million.  These cost overruns directly reduce funding available for maintenance.  By failing to correctly estimate costs, and by always paying for cost-overruns, ODOT’s actual policy prioritizes new capacity construction over maintenance.

Diverting maintenance funds to new construction

ODOT routinely diverts funds allocated to and available for maintenance to fund capital construction projects.

It used interstate maintenance discretionary funds to pay for the planning of the failed Columbia River Crossing project.  It diverted funds that could otherwise be used for maintenance to pay for the Interstate Bridge Replacement project.  It routinely prioritizes capital construction in the use of “unanticipated federal funds” and “project savings.”  It cobbled together just these funding sources to pay for the initial work on the I-205 Abernethy Bridge before the Legislature authorized any funding for the project.  Each year it gets a tranche of what it calls “unexpected” federal funds (federal money that is unspent from nationally competitive programs that is allocated to the states).  At its July, 2022 meeting ODOT recommended (and the OTC approved) using this money, which could be applied to the maintenance backlog, to fund $10 million towards the Interstate Bridge Replacement project.

This bias toward highway expansion at the expense of maintenance will be amplified by ODOT plans to issue massive amounts of debt for new highway construction. ODOT is pursuing a risky bonding strategy for billions of dollars of Portland-area freeway expansion projects, that effectively pledges to use maintenance monies to repay bond-holders.  HB 3055 allows ODOT to pledge all of its state and federal funds to the repayment of toll-backed bonds.  If toll revenues are less than projected–which happens frequently–ODOT would be legally obligated to cut funding for maintenance statewide to pay back bond holders.

Bait and switch

For years, ODOT has come to the Legislature, pleading poverty:  It doesn’t have enough money to maintain our roads, therefore, we need to increase gas taxes, weight-mile taxes and registration fees.  Then, when the Legislature authorizes higher taxes, ODOT uses this money not to reduce the maintenance backlog, but instead to fund giant new construction projects.  When these projects go over budget, it cannibalizes funds that could be used for maintenance, and comes back to the Legislature, again pointing to its self-created backlog of funding needs to fix potholes and preserve bridges.  In reality, Oregon is a “fix it last” or “fix it never” state:  the maintenance spending backlog is just a perpetual excuse to force the Legisalture and taxpayers to give the agency more money, which it will then plow into expanding roadways.

Ignoring the Coast Guard dooms the I-5 Bridge Project to yet another failure

The Oregon and Washington DOTs have again designed a I-5 bridge that’s too low for navigation

In their rush to recycle the failed plans for the Columbia River Crossing, the two state transportation departments have failed to address Coast Guard navigation concerns

State DOT PR efforts are mis-representing the approval process:  The Coast Guard alone, decides on the allowable height for bridges, and only considers the needs of navigation.  

Make no mistake, the Coast Guard officially drew a line in the sand–actually, 178 feet in the air above the Columbia River–and has essentially said that the two state DOTs “shall not pass” with a river crossing that doesn’t provide that level of navigation clearance.

What the preliminary determination is intended to do is signal to the DOTs the kind of structure that the Coast Guard will likely approve.  But the Oregon and Washington DOTs aren’t taking the hint.  Instead, they’re pretending that this “determination” is really meaningless, and that if they just show that the height restriction would be inconvenient or expensive for them to comply with, that they can somehow force the Coast Guard to let them build a bridge with a lower navigation clearance.  That’s a clearly wrong reading of the law, and more importantly it means the two State DOTs are embarking on a risky strategy that’s likely to doom the current effort to build a new Columbia River Bridge.

Prolog:  The failure of the CRC

As we’ve pointed out, this is deja vu all over again.  The Columbia River Crossing project similarly ignored Coast Guard signals that a low bridge would be unacceptable.

More than a decade ago, the Oregon and Washington DOTs advanced a plan for a new fixed-span I-5 bridge with a navigation clearance of 95 feet.  The DOTs did their own analysis of shipping needs, and claimed that, in their opinion, 95 feet would meet the reasonable needs of river users.  The trouble is, that determination isn’t up to state DOTs:  it’s the exclusive legal province of the US Coast Guard, which is charged by Congress with protecting the nation’s navigable waterways.  (Despite the moniker “Department of Transportation” state DOTs have essentially no legal or policy responsibility for commercial water traffic.

Early on in the bridge design process–in 2005–the Coast Guard signalled its likely objections to a mere 95-foot river clearance.  But state DOT officials blundered ahead, insisting that their own analysis was sufficient to justify the low design.  At the time it issued its record of decision in December 2011, the Coast Guard filed a formal objection, noting that the two state DOTs had not provided sufficient information for the Coast Guard to make the determination as to the needed clearance.  The Coast Guard wrote:

. . . the Coast Guard’s concerns with the adequacy of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) have not been resolved . . . As previously stated, the Coast Guard cannot determine if the preferred 95-foot bridge clearance will meet reasonable navigation requirements based on the information provided for review.

In addition, the Coast Guard noted that the FEIS failed to consider the environmental effects of different bridge heights:

The FEIS does not address current and future impacts to navigation/waterway users as a result of proposed decreased vertical clearance, nor does it study alternatives to a vertical clearance other than 95 feet.

As the bridge permitting agency, the Coast Guard determines the reasonable needs of navigation when acting upon a permit application.

Only after completing the FEIS and getting a ROD did the two state transportation departments start applying for the needed Coast Guard bridge permit.  In December 2012, the Coast Guard made it clear that the proposed 95-foot clearance would not be sufficient.  Ultimately, the Coast Guard insisted on at least a 116-foot river clearance.

Here we go again

Even though they’ve been working on reviving the Columbia River Crossing since 2018, the two state DOTs only submitted a new navigation report to the Coast Guard in November 2021.  For more than three years they’ve been operating under the assumption that the Coast Guard will go along with a 116-foot navigation clearance.  But in its “Preliminary Navigation Clearance Determination” the Coast Guard has said that won’t be nearly enough.

The Coast Guard is crystal clear about its approval standard:

“Generally the Coast Guard does not approve bridge proposal with vertical navigation clearances below the ‘present governing structure’ when the existing VNC has been and is currently needed unless there is a compelling navigational reason to do so.” (Harris to Goldstein, June 17, 2022, p. 2)

The real takeaway from the Coast Guard letter is that the I-5 bridge needs to provide 178 feet (or more) of vertical navigation clearance.

. . .  the Columbia River (specifically the section of the Columbia River immediately east of the existing I-5 twin bridges) has and needs to continue to provide VNC equal or greater than the existing I-5 twin bridges of 178 feet. Our PNCD concluded that the current proposed bridge with 116 feet VNC, as depicted in the NOPN, would create an unreasonable obstruction to navigation for vessels with a VNC greater than 116 feet and in fact would completely obstruct navigation for such vessels for the service life of the bridge which is approximately 100 years or longer. (Emphasis added)

The implication is that if the two DOTs can work out a financial deal with existing river users it can get Coast Guard to approval a lower bridge clearance.  But Coast Guard’s past comments and current review indicate that it is not merely looking out for the interests of current river traffic and industry, but is intent on protecting the current navigational channel for future industry and activities.

The reasons for the Coast Guard’s decision are clearly laid out in its June 17, 2022 letter:

• Current users need to move structures and vessels with a clearance of between 130 and 178 feet.
• Vessels and their cargos are growing larger over time.  Marine industries need the flexibility to accommodate larger structures in the future.
• There are no alternative routes for waterborne traffic to reach areas East of the I-5 bridges; in contrast their are many alternate routes for terrestrial traffic (cars, trucks and trains).
• Water access to the area East of the I-5 bridges, including PDX airport and the Columbia Business Center marine industrial area in Vancouver may be needed in the event of a natural or national emergency
• Historically, the Columbia Business Center has been a preferred site for shipyard activity (it housed the Kaiser Shipyard in World War II) and may be needed again for this purpose in the future

The Coast Guard’s conclusion makes it clear that it is strongly committed to maintaining the existing river clearance, that it won’t approve a 116 foot bridge, and that the economic effects of this would be unacceptable.  It also pointedly directs the two state DOTs to evaluate either a tunnel or a moveable span to meet its 178-foot requirement:

The Columbia River System is an extremely important interdependent-multimodal supporting national and international commerce critical to local, national and global economies. Reducing the capability and capacity of the Columbia River System would severely restrict navigation. IBR’s proposed bridge as depicted in Public Notice 02-22 with its 35% reduction of VNC from 178 feet to 116 feet is contradictory to the U.S. Coast Guard’s mandate from Congress to maintain freedom of navigation on the navigable waters of the U.S. and to prevent impairment to U.S. navigable waterways. As new structures are built, navigation clearances should be improved or at a minimum maintained. Any proposed new bridge should have a VNC of greater than or equal to that of the existing I-5 twin bridges of 178 feet or preferable, unlimited VNC, as well as a HNC as permitted during the final USACE 408 permit. There are alternative options to accomplish this VNC to include a tunnel or a high-level lift bridge or bascule bridge, which would provide an unlimited vertical clearance. A modern similar successful project is the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac River in Washington, DC that was completed in 2009. It is a higher-level double bascule lift bridge on an interstate (I-95) with transit. The added height of the new bridge reduced the number of bascule bridge openings for vessel passage by 76%. (Emphasis added)

The DOT Strategy:  Maximum Risk

Once again, the state DOTs have delayed as long as possible confronting the issue of the navigation clearance.  This time, having learned from its prior experience, the Coast Guard has insisted that the navigation issue be addressed prior to the environmental impact statement.

Still, the DOTs are equivocating, implying that the Coast Guard decision has no weight, and arguing that the legal standard for review involves some kind of balancing of DOT interests in a convenient and cheaper low clearance bridge and implying that the DOTs and not the Coast Guard are the ones who determine the minimum navigation clearance.

The best way to minimize risk is to advance a series of possible alternative solutions through the SEIS process.  At a minimum, these should include a lower level bridge with a lift span, and some kind of tunnel.  In the event that the Coast Guard sticks to its preliminary determination, which is a strong possibility, if not a very high probability, this will mean that the project will be able to move forward.  The DOTs solution, to move forward with only a fixed span, runs the risk that the Coast Guard will hold firm to its announced intention to require a minimum 178 feet of clearance, meaning that two or three years from now the project will be back to square one with no legally buildable, environmentally reviewed project.  All of the project sponsor’s supposed concern with being able to compete for funding will be jeopardized by this reckless decision to look only a fixed span.

The Coast Guard has told Oregon and Washington that a new I-5 bridge must have a 178-foot vertical clearance for river navigation–vastly higher than the 116-foot clearance the state’s have proposed

A fixed span with that clearance would be prohibitively expensive and would have to be huge–nearly 2 miles long, and would have steep grades. 

An easier solution would be a new bridge with a moveable span, such as that built for I-95 in Washington DC, yet IBR officials tell falsely claim an I-5 liftwapan would have to be “the world’s largest”

Three Portland area bridges have bascule spans of comparable size to that needed for the I-5 bridge, and much larger bascule and vertical lift bridges have been built elsewhere.

Our story so far:  For the past three years the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation have been trying to revive their plans for the failed Columbia River Crossing, a massive freeway expansion project between Portland and Vancouver.  The project would require replacing the existing I-5 bridges over the Columbia River, and the height of these bridges will be determined by the US Coast Guard.  In June, the Coast Guard issued its “Preliminary Navigation Clearance Determination” (PNCD) saying that the bridges would have to at least preserve the current navigational clearances (178 of vertical space.  That immediately threw a wrench into the DOT plans to build a fixed span with just 116 feet of clearance.  The Coast Guard declared unequivocally:

Our PNCD concluded that the current proposed bridge with 116 feet VNC [vertical navigation clearance], as depicted in the NOPN [Navigation Only Public Notice], would create an unreasonable obstruction to navigation for vessels with a VNC greater than 116 feet and in fact would completely obstruct navigation for such vessels for the service life of the bridge which is approximately 100 years or longer.

B.J. Harris, US Coast Guard, to FHWA, June 17, 2022, emphasis added.

The Interstate Bridge Replacement Project is hoping to get the Coast Guard to back down, in part by asserting that it would be impossible to build a lift span to provide the Coast Guard’s requirements.

IBR Administrator Greg Johnson testified to the Joint Oregon-Washington I-5 Bridge Committee, that if the Coast Guard required the I-5 bridge to be built with a lift span, it would be the largest such structure in the world.

.  . .  a cost of putting what would in essence be the largest lift span in the world. We’re talking about an additional $400 million in that way. So, these are the trade offs that we have to look at the viability of a lift span that large which has never been operated at that size before . .  .

(emphasis added)

That’s simply not true.  In fact, there are other lift spans in the Portland area that are as large, or larger, than would be needed to include a lift span on the I-5 bridges, as we document below.

But Administrator Johnson’s claim is both ominous and vague.  How large would the navigation opening in a lift span need to be?   That determination will be made by the US Coast Guard.  The current bridge has a vertical navigation clearance of 178 feet. The 2012 Navigation Impact Report prepared for the Columbia River Crossing documented the existing navigation clearances of the I-5 bridges, which are 178 feet vertically and 263 feet horizontally.  The bridge also has a barge navigation channel with a maximum horizontal clearance of 511 feet, but this barge channel has a vertical clearance of from 46-70 feet.  The Coast Guard’s preliminary navigation report said that a new bridge should at least preserve both of the current horizontal and vertical clearances.

Needed Navigation Clearances:  178 feet high, 263 feet wide

In addition, maximum river channel on this stretch of the Columbia River is already constrained by the next downstream bridge, which is the Burlington Northern “9.6” bridge (less than a mile West of the I-5 bridges).  This railroad bridge has a swing span with an opening width of about 230 feet. In order to provide a 263 foot wide channel, the I-5 bridge would need two bascule leaves with a length of 135 feet each.

One does not have to look far in the Portland Metro area to find such bridges.  There are three in the center of downtown Portland, the Morrison Bridge and the Burnside Bridge.  The Morrison Bridge (1958) has two bascule lift sections, with an opening of 284 feet.  The Burnside Bridge (1926) also has  two bascule lift sections, with an opening of 252 feet.  The Broadway Bridge (1911-12)–a slightly different kind of bascule–has an opening of 278 feet.

The Morrison Bridge (1958):  284 foot wide opening

The Broadway Bridge (1911-12):  278 foot wide opening

Nor is the width of the needed roadway an obstacle.  The Morrison Bridge has a roadway width of 90 feet—exactly the same as the width proposed for each of the two aborted Columbia River Crossing bridges.

Woodrow Wilson Bridge:  A modern busy Interstate with a lift-span

But can we have lift spans on Interstate highways?  Actually, the answer is yes.  I-95, the one of the nation’s busiest freeways connecting the major metro areas on the East Coast has a lift span in Washington DC.  The Woodrow Wilson Bridge, opened in 2009, has a modern double leaf bascule bridge that carries 12 travel lanes and 250,000 vehicles per day across the Potomac River.  Also, there’s some question about the width of the roadway on the bascule bridge.  For the record, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge has two separate sets of “leaves” for the north and south bound sections of I-5 (i.e. it’s like two bascule bridges side by side).

Woodrow Wilson Bridge

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge allows for a relatively low level crossing of the Potomac River, minimizing the height and footprint of interchanges on either side of the river (shown above)

Rather than towering over the Vancouver waterfront, and requiring lengthy elevated roadway sections across downtown Vancouver and over Hayden Island, a bascule lift-span bridge could be built at a much lower level, eliminating the need to rebuild intersections high into the air to meet a fixed span high enough to clear 178 feet.

In contrast, a fixed-span high-level bridge violates both the pledges to respect the environment and promote equity.  It hurts the environment, because the high bridge requires vehicles to climb over a much higher elevation, leading them to consume more fuel and emit more pollutants than would be the case with a lower elevation lift-span crossing.  This is especially true for heavy trucks that will struggle to climb the high bridge’s steep grades, and which will create a safety hazard for faster moving cars.  The high bridge is also inequitable for those who are not traveling by car:  those who walk on bike or on foot will find the steep grades associated with the high bridge much more taxing the motorists, who will simply have to press harder on the accelerator pedal.

Not the world’s largest lift bridge

Rethe Bridge, Hamburg:  308 foot opening

An I-5 lift span meeting the Coast Guard’s requirements would not only not be the largest lift-span in the world; it wouldn’t be even the largest lift span in the neighborhood  That particular honor belongs to the Burlington Northern Willamette River Bridge 5.9, which has a vertical clearance of over 200 feet, and a moveable span that is more than 500 feet long–higher, and almost twice as wide as the needed opening for a new I-5 moveable span meeting Coast Guard requirements.

The Burlington Northern Willamette River Bridge: 200 feet high, 500 foot opening.

This lift span was paid for by the federal government in 1989 and has a lift span that is 516 feet long and it provides a vertical clearance of 200 feet.  The lift span was added to the existing bridge in place of a swing span  for a cost of less than $40 million (about $125 million in today’s construction expense).

Repeating Past Mistakes:  Planning a Bridge Too Low

A decade ago, the Oregon and Washington Transportation Departments tried to force the Coast Guard to agree to a fixed Columbia River Crossing I-5 bridge with a height of just 95 feet over the river, arguing (exactly as they are now) that this lower level best balances the needs of different forms of transportation.  Balancing needs of road users, though, is not the legal standard applied by the Coast Guard, which following federal law, prioritizes the needs of river navigation.  As the Coast Guard said in its review, road users have many alternate routes for crossing the Columbia River; waterborne commerce has none.

 

The two DOTs attempt to force the Coast Guard to agree to a lower bridge height added more than a year of delays to the CRC process (which ultimately failed) as well as millions of dollars in added planning costs.  The IBR team has no plans to seek a bridge permit before 2025, and thereby seems intent on repeating this mistake–moving forward with attempts to convince the Coast Guard to approve a lower navigation clearance, while spending tens of millions of dollars planning a bridge that may not meet the Coast Guard’s legal requirements.

References:

• Federal Highway Administration (1989-2003).  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/pt2006q1.cfm
• FHWA, Highway Construction Cost index (2003=1)  2021Q4=2.19
  https://explore.dot.gov/views/NHIInflationDashboard/

Nearly every major project undertaken by the Oregon Department of Transportation has ended up costing at least double its initial estimate

As ODOT proposes a multi-billion dollar series of highway expansions, its estimates pose huge financial risks for the state

ODOT refuses to acknowledge its long record of cost-overruns, and has no management strategy to address this chronic problem

Costs are escalating rapidly for more recent and larger projects, indicating this problem is getting worse

The Oregon Department of Transportation is proposing to move forward with a multi-billion dollar series of highway expansion projects in the Portland metropolitan area, including the $5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement project, the $1.45 billion Rose Quarter freeway widening project, the likely $1 billion I-205/Abernethy Bridge/I-205 widening project and an as yet un-priced Boone Bridge project.  Collectively, these projects would be by far the most expensive infrastructure investment in department’s history.  But the quoted prices for each project are just the tip of a looming financial iceberg.

A quick look at the agency’s history shows that it has invariably grossly underestimated the actual cost of the major projects it has undertaken in the past two decades.  Using data from ODOT’s own records and other public reports, we’ve compiled data on the initial project costs estimates (those quoted before construction commenced) and compared them with the latest estimates (either the actual final amount of spending in the case of completed projects, or the latest cost estimates for projects that have not yet been finished).  In every case, the ultimate price of a project was more than double the initial cost estimate.

This is important because ODOT is asking for permission to undertake a series of highway expansion projects, which, once started, will create a huge financial liability for the state of Oregon.  For three projects (the I-5 Bridge Replacement, the Rose Quarter and the Abernethy Bridge I-205 widening), ODOT is planning to sell toll-backed bonds to pay for part of project costs.  But if toll revenues are insufficient to pay bonds, or if costs escalate beyond current estimates, the state is fully liable to repay all these costs, and debt service on bonds, and these payments will take precedence over all other expenditures from state and federal transportation funds.  The failure to accurately forecast project costs for Portland freeway expansions, coupled with an unavoidable obligation to repay bondholders means that all other state transportation priorities, including even routine maintenance, would be in jeopardy.

Here is a closer look at seven major ODOT construction projects undertaken in the past twenty years.  Every one has experienced enormous cost overruns.

The Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Freeway project would widen a 1.5 mile stretch of freeway in Portland and was originally represented to the 2017 Oregon Legislature as costing $450 million. The latest estimates from the Oregon Department of Transportation are that the project could cost as much as $1.45 billion.   

The Legislature directed ODOT to prepare a “cost to complete” report for the I-205 Abernethy Bridge project.  The bridge connects Oregon City and West Linn, and would be widened and seismically strengthened.  ODOT’s 2018 report said the bridge would cost $248 million.  When the agency put the project out to bid in 2022, the actual cost came in at $495 million–essentially double ODOT’s estimate.

ODOT estimated the 5 mile long Highway 20 Pioneer Mountain-Eddyville project would cost $110 million when the project completed its environmental reviews in 2003 (Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation. (2003). Pioneer Mountain to Eddyville US 20, Lincoln County, Oregon, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Executive Summary).  After years of delay, and including a design-build contractor withdrawing from the project, and ODOT having to demolish bridge structures and redesign significant parts of the project, its total cost was $360 million.

The Newberg-Dundee Bypass has been under consideration for almost two decades; a portion of the project was completed five years ago.  The initial estimate of the project’s total cost was $222 million (Oregon Department of Transportation. (2005). Newberg-Dundee Transportation Improvement Project Location (Tier 1) Final Environmental Impact Statement (News Release 06-132-R2).  The latest estimate of the cost of completing that full bypass project is now $752 million (Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation. (2010). Newberg Dundee Bypass, Tier 2 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (FHWA-OR-EIS-10-0-1D). Salem: Oregon Department of Transportation.

In 2002, the Oregon Department of Transportation told the City of Portland that rebuilding the Grand Avenue Viaduct (Highway 99E) in Southeast Portland would cost about $31.2 million (Leeson, Fred, “Council Backs Long Bridge in Viaduct’s Spot”  Portland Oregonian, July 19, 2002) .  The project was completed seven years at a total cost almost three times higher:  $91.8 million (ODOT, ARRA Project Data for ODOTas of 8/31/2010) .

When proposed in 1999, it was estimated that the I-5 South Medford Interchange would cost about $30 million  (Rogue Valley Area Commision on Transportation meeting notes, September 13, 2005).   In 2013, after the project was completed the agency said the cost was $96 million.

The original cost estimate for the I-5 Woodburn interchange project was $25 million in 2006 (FHWA & ODOT, Woodburn Interchange Project, Revised Environmental Assessment, November 2006).  The completed price was $68 million.

It’s always possible to make excuses for cost-overruns on any single project.  And if cost-overruns had happened only once, or maybe twice, it might make sense to dismiss them as aberrations.  But as the record of these seven projects makes abundantly clear, major ODOT highway projects almost invariably ending up costing twice as much as the original price quoted at the time the project is approved.  Cost overruns are a systematic and predictable feature of ODOT’s approach to highway building, not an aberrant bug.

No Accountability for Cost Overruns

In an attempt to quell concerns about the ODOT’s managerial competence, in 2015, Governor Kate Brown directed that the agency hire an outside auditor to examine its performance.  ODOT did nothing for the first five months of 2016, and said the project would cost as much as half a million dollars. Initially, ODOT awarded a $350,000 oversight contract to an insider, who as it turns out, was angling for then-ODOT director Matt Garrett’s job.  After this conflict-of-interest was exposed, the department rescinded the contract in instead gave a million dollar contract to McKinsey & Co, (so without irony, ODOT had at least a 100 percent cost overrun on the contract to perform their audit.)

McKinsey’s work consisted mostly of interviews with agency-identified “stakeholders” and a superficial analysis of ODOT date.  Its report focused on largely meaningless or trivial indicators such as “average time needed to process purchase orders.”  One part of the report purportedly addressed the agency’s ability to bring projects on time and under budget.  McKinsey presented this graphic, showing the variation between initial and finished costs for a series of mostly small projects.

There’s a striking omission, as revealed in the fine-print footnote:  McKinsey excluded data for the Highway 20 Pioneer Mountain Eddyville project.  This project, the single most expensive project that ODOT had undertaken, had a 300 percent cost-overrun, which the McKinsey report both failed to report correctly and which it described  as “performed 27 percent higher.”

The Oregon Department of Transportation doesn’t accurately forecast the cost of its projects, and refuses to be held accountable for a consistent pattern of errors.  Relying on ODOT’s cost estimates exposes the state to enormous financial risk, something that is likely to be magnified as the department moves ahead relentlessly with plans for billions of dollars of freeway expansion projects in the Portland area.

Ignore the false claims that the Oregon and Washington highway departments are making about the number of lanes on their proposed I-5 project:  its footprint will be 164 feet—easily enough for a 10- or 12-lane roadway.

This commentary was originally published at Bike Portland, and is re-published here with permission.

If you followed Tuesday’s Portland City Council work session or have been reading press reports about the Interstate Bridge Replacement project, you’ve probably noticed claims that the size of the project has somehow been reduced to adding “just one auxiliary lane” in each direction to I-5. The implication is that they’re only building enough capacity to expand the existing I-5 bridge from its current six lanes (three in each direction) to eight lanes (three plus a so-called “auxiliary” lane in each direction).

This claim is false.

A close look at the materials prepared by the Oregon and Washington departments of transportation shows they plan to build a new I-5 bridge at least 164 feet wide — easily enough for ten or even twelve traffic lanes. While the glossy materials describing the project prominently talk about “one auxiliary lane” (in each direction), they almost completely omit a description of the actual width of the bridge. The IBR documents show only crude and misleading cartoon-like drawings of the bridge, without any actual measurements. That’s intentional: because they don’t really want you to know how wide a structure they’re planning.

But in a cryptic note in their presentation, they do refer to the width: The so-called ten lane bridge (two auxiliary lanes each direction) is said to have the same “footprint” as the 2013 Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA, a step in the federal NEPA review process). For the record, that footprint is 180 feet. For the so-called eight lane bridge (one auxiliary lane in each direction), the footprint is described as “2013 LPA Minus 16 Feet” which works out to 164 feet wide.

The broader context is this: the so-called “bridge replacement” is really a five-mile long, ten or twelve lane wide highway widening project that will cost $5 billion, and potentially a lot more.

This is a repetition of the false claim made for the preceding project — the failed Columbia River Crossing (CRC). In 2010, in response to objections from the City of Portland and Metro, ODOT and WSDOT announced they were reducing the size of the CRC bridge from 12 lanes to 10 lanes. But in reality, all they did was change the references in the project documents to that number of lanes, while literally erasing from the Final Environmental Impact Statement every single reference to the actual widths of the bridges and other structures they intended to build. A public records request showed the actual plans for the bridges — which were not published — were exactly the same size (180 feet in width) as they were for the 12-lane version of the bridge.

The limited materials released by the IBR project to date make it clear that they are engaged in exactly the same deception.

With standard-width 12 foot wide freeway lanes, this 164 foot wide bridge would accommodate ten traffic lanes (120 feet), with 11 foot shoulders on either side of the travel lanes, or as many as twelve travel lanes (144 feet) with five foot shoulders on either side of the twelve travel lanes). (Alternatively, the 164 foot width would allow construction of 12 travel lanes with 2 foot wide left shoulders and 8 foot wide right shoulders, which would be common, if not generous for an urban bridge.)

While they’re calling it an eight-lane bridge, it’s really a 10 or 12 lane bridge.

ODOT and WSDOT will no doubt say they’re “only” adding two lanes, and point to the supposed safety benefits of wider shoulders; but nothing prevents them, after building a 164-foot wide bridge, from coming back with a paint truck and re-striping it for ten or twelve lanes. In fact, they’ll claim that they can do that without any further environmental analysis under a “categorical exclusion” to the US DOT claims to the National Environmental Policy Act.

This isn’t an aberration or an accident, it’s an intentional strategy to evade environmental review: ODOT and WSDOT did this a decade ago on the failed Columbia River Crossing. It did the same thing with the I-5 Rose Quarter project, again claiming it was merely adding one auxiliary lane in each direction. Meanwhile its actual plans (which it kept secret and didn’t include in the Environmental Assessment) showed it planned to build the I-5 Rose Quarter project to be 160 feet wide, easily enough to accomodate 10 lanes of traffic.

The highway builders know — though they refuse to admit — that more lanes induce more traffic and more pollution. That’s why they’re engaging in this highly deceptive process of claiming they’re just adding a single “auxiliary” lane, when in fact, they’re engineering structures that can be repainted in a day to be vastly wider. This subterfuge enables them to claim minimal environmental impacts now, and then with no further review, create exactly the wider roadway they wanted all along.

In the next month or two, regional leaders in Portland are going to be asked to approve the “modified locally preferred alternative” for the I-5 Bridge Replacement (IBR) Project, an intentionally misnamed, $5 billion, 5 mile long, 12-lane wide freeway widening project between Portland and Vancouver, Washington.

There’s a decided rush to judgment, with almost many of the most basic facts about the project being obscured, concealed, or ignored by the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation.  As with the failed Columbia River Crossing, they’re trying to pressure leaders into making a decision with incomplete information.  Here are ten questions that the IBR project has simply failed to answer.  We’ve offered our own insights on the real answers, but before the region’s leaders take another step, they should satisfy themselves that they know the real answers to each of these questions.

1. How much will it cost?

Conspicuously absent from IBR presentations is any clear statement of what the project is likely to cost.  Almost two years ago, the project released a warmed over version of the cost estimates from the Columbia River Crossing indicating the project could cost $4.8 billion.  But this estimate is based on an update of old CRC estimates, rather than a new, bottom-up cost estimate of the current project.  Already, the IBR team has decided to rebuild the North Portland Harbor bridge which will add an estimated $200 million to the project.  Moreover construction inflation has accelerated in recent months; bids for the Abernethy Bridge project in Portland came in almost 40 percent higher than forecast.  Similar cost overruns on the IBR would add more than $2 billion to the price tag.

Real Answer:  The IBR is likely to be a $5-7 billion project

2. Who will pay for it?

Also missing from the IBR presentation is a definitive statement of the sources of funds to pay for the project.  For starters–and just for starters–the project says Oregon and Washington will each be expected to contribute $1 billion.  There’s a considerable amount of vague hand-waving about federal support, but most federal money in the Infrastructure bill is allocated by formula, and comes to the two states whether they build this project or not; and so spending this money on the IBR, rather than fixing the multi-billion dollar backlog of other bridge repairs, comes at a real cost to the states.  What is clear is that a third or more of the IBR’s costs will have to be recouped by charging tolls to bridge users, and that the two states, and no one else, will be on the hook for any cost overruns and any revenue shortfalls.  And cost overruns are hardly conjecture:  The I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project, estimated to cost $450 million five years ago, is now likely to cost as much as $1.45 billion according to ODOT.

Real answer:  Oregon and Washington have unlimited liability for project costs including cost overruns and toll revenue shortfalls.

3.  How high will tolls be?

IBR staff have said next to nothing about what level of tolls will be charged for bridge users.  Studies prepared for the Columbia River Crossing showed that tolls would have to be a minimum of $2.60 for off peak users and $3.25 for peak travel, plus surcharges for those who don’t buy transponders, which would push peak period car tolls over $5.00 each way.  Trucks would pay 5 times as much as cars, with peak period tolls topping $18.  Knowing what the toll levels will be is essential to understanding the economic impacts of the bridge, as well as accurately forecasting future traffic levels.  Experience in other states has shown that even an $1 or $2 toll could permanently reduce traffic to half of its current levels, eliminating the need to add any capacity to the I-5 crossing.  Before they move ahead with the project, shouldn’t the public and its leaders know how much will be charged in tolls?

Real answer:  Tolls will be $2-3 each way, and highest at peak hours, costing regular commuters more than $1,000 per year.

4  Will other bridges and highways be tolled to avoid gridlock?

If just the I-5 bridges are tolled, ODOT and WSDOTs own consultants predict that this will produce gridlock on I-205.  IBR staff have made vague statements claiming to have looked at tolling other roadways at the same time.  But unless parallel routes like the I-205 are also tolled, the traffic claims made for the IBR are simply invalid.  If the region is serious about tolling and avoiding gridlock, it needs to adopt a comprehensive tolling strategy before it commits to a multi-billion dollar freeway widening project.

Technical work done for the CRC project, reported on page one of the Oregonian in 2014, indicated that tolling I-5 would produce gridlock on I-5.  

Tolling will dramatically affect the traffic levels on I-5 and I-205.  The best evidence is that tolling the region’s freeways would virtually eliminate the need for additional capacity expansion.  ODOT’s own congestion pricing consultants showed that a comprehensive system of road pricing would eliminate most metro area traffic congestion, without the need to spend billions on added capacity.  We know from experience in other cities that tolling after adding capacity simply leads to wasting billions of dollars on roadways that aren’t used because travelers don’t value them.

Real Answer:  Unless we toll the I-205 bridge as well, the I-5 bridge will be under-utilized, and I-205 will have gridlock. The region needs to decide on a toll system before its squanders billions on un-need highway capacity, and goes deeply into debt to repay bonds for capacity that isn’t used.

5. What will it look like?

Despite spending more than two and a half years and tens of millions of dollars on designing the project, the IBR has yet to produce any renderings showing what the project would look like to human beings standing on the ground in Vancouver or on Hayden Island.  The bridge will be 150 feet tall as it crosses the Columbia River and will have lengthy approach ramps, and extensive elevated freeway sections over Vancouver and Hayden Island, with substantial visual and noise impacts.  But you would never know it from the project’s presentations, which if they show the bridge and freeway expansion at all, show it from an aerial view that could be seen only from flights over Portland International Airport.  The project’s presentation to a joint legislative committee in April contains no illustrations of what is to be built at all.

City Observatory has obtained, via public records request, the 3D models created by IBR to show the size and location of the proposed I-5 Bridge.  The following image shows what the proposed I-5 bridge would look like, compared to the existing bridge.  It would be dramatically taller and wider, and would loom over downtown Vancouver.  It’s relatively easy to produce images showing how the replacement bridge would affect Vancouver.  Why hasn’t the IBR with its extensive budget produced any such images?

Real Answer:  The I-5 replacement bridge and approaches will tower over downtown Vancouver and Hayden Island.

6. How long will the trains take?

A key part of the project is a plan to add light rail service between Portland’s Expo Center and downtown Vancouver.  The IBR project asserts that there will be huge demand for travel on light rail.  But light rail is relatively slow.  Unless light rail is faster than car travel or express buses, it’s unlikely to attract many riders.  Currently, Tri-Met’s Yellow line takes 29 minutes to get from the Expo Center to downtown Portland.  The CRC FEIS projected that it would take light rail trains about 6 minutes to get from Mill Plain Boulevard across a new I-5 bridge to the Expo Center; together this means it will take at least 35 minutes via light rail to reach downtown Portland from Vancouver.  That’s more than 10 minutes longer than it takes current C-Tran express buses, traveling in morning, peak hour traffic, to travel between 15th and Broadway in Vancouver to SW 5th and Alder in Portland—a 7:56 AM bus leaving Vancouver reaches downtown Portland at 8:20.  Also:  with added capacity on I-5 and tolling of I-5, future express buses would travel even faster than they do today, so light rail would likely be at an even greater time disadvantage than it is now.  The information provided by the IBR contains no explanation of how a slower train is going to attract more riders than a faster bus or why BRT would perform worse than LRT in this corridor.

Real Answer:  The LRT extension to Vancouver will be considerably slower than today’s buses.

7. How can traffic models predict more no-build traffic on a bridge that is already at capacity?

The I-5 bridges reached capacity almost two decades ago, and can’t handle additional traffic, but ODOT’s model apparently predicts that traffic will continue to grow across the bride even though there’s no capacity.  This is a classic example of a broken model that in the words of national modeling expert Norm Marshall “forecasts the impossible.”  ODOT’s own consultants, CDM Smith, said in 2013 that the I-5 bridge could handle no more peak traffic due to capacity constraints:

Traffic under the existing toll-free operating condition on the I-5 bridge reached nominal capacity several years ago, especially considering the substandard widths of lanes and shoulders on the facility. The I-5 bridge has little or no room for additional growth in most peak periods, and capacity constraints have limited growth over the last decade.

The IBR’s own modelers admitted that traffic growth on I-5 has been limited due to the bridge being at capacity and congested.  Yet they’ve created a fictitious “no build” scenario in which traffic continues to increase, essentially because it has no meaningful feedback loops to adjust travel demand to reflect how humans actually respond in the face of congestion.

Real Answer:  ODOT is using flawed models that overstate no-build traffic and pollution, and conceal the true environmental impact of freeway expansion

8. How wide will the bridges be?

The IBR team describes the I-5 Bridges adding either two or four so-called “auxiliary lanes” to the existing six freeway lanes on I-5 through the project area.  But the project hasn’t revealed how wide the structures are that its actually building.  In the project’s last iteration, the “Columbia River Crossing”, the project said they reduced the size of the bridge from twelve lanes to ten in response to objections to its width from local leaders, but in fact, public records requests showed that they didn’t reduce the physical size of the bridges (or other structures) at all.  The supposed “ten lane” bridge was 180 feet wide, just as was the proposed “twelve lane” bridge.

The cryptic information provided by the IBR says that its so-called 10-lane bridge would be just as wide as the CRC (180 feet), and the so-called 8 lane bridge (“one auxiliary lane”) would be just 16 feet narrower (“2013 LPA Minus 16 Feet”), which works out to 164 feet wide.  With standard-width 12 foot wide freeway lanes, this 164 foot wide bridge would accommodate ten traffic lanes (120 feet), with 11 foot shoulders on either side of the travel lanes, or as many as twelve travel lanes (144 feet) with five foot shoulders on either side of the twelve travel lanes).  (Alternatively, the 164 foot width would allow construction of 12 travel lanes with 2 foot wide left shoulders and 8 foot wide right shoulders, which would be common, if not generous for an urban bridge).

When it comes to bridges or freeway capacity, ignore how many “lanes” ODOT and WSDOT claim they’re building, and look at how wide the structures are.  They’ve repeatedly used this deceptive tactic to intentionally conceal the true width and environmental impact of their projects.

Real Answer:  Regardless of how many lanes IBR claims its building, its actual plans provide capacity for more, in this case a 10 or 12 lane bridge.

9. How many cars will use the bridge?

The primary argument for the IBR is that it is needed to carry a growing number of vehicles crossing the Columbia River.  But completely absent from any of the project’s materials is any specification the volume of traffic the bridge will carry.  The project makes claims about travel times and traffic delay, but can’t possibly have come up with those estimates without coming up with estimates of the number of cars that will use the bridge.  It specifically suppressed this information to undercut the public’s ability to understand–and ask questions about and criticize the modeling.  And we know that the project’s earlier modeling done for the Columbia River Crossing was simply wrong.  It predicted that traffic would grow by 1.7 percent per year on I-5 between 2005 and 2030; in fact, through 2019, traffic grew by only 0.3 percent per year.   This chart shows the average daily traffic on I-5 as predicted by the CRC (blue: no-build, red build) and actual, from ODOT’s own traffic records (black).  We can’t see how IBR’s new modeling compares to these figures, because they’ve simply refused to publish any average daily traffic totals.

The models used by IBR systematically over-estimate travel in the No-build scenario and underestimate, if not completely ignore, the additional traffic induced by adding more lanes.  It’s impossible to assess the project’s claims about traffic performance, environmental impacts, or financial viability with out transparent and accurate estimates of the number of vehicles that will use the bridge.

Real Answer:  IBR uses flawed models which overstate the need for freeway capacity to justify un-needed and expensive freeway widening.

10. How will a wider freeway reduce carbon emissions?

The IBR material makes the specious claim that it will result in lower emissions, based on the false claim that decreasing traffic congestion will reduce vehicle idling in traffic, and that the bridge will have a higher share of transit passengers (something which it cannot explain–see #6 above).  The RMI Shift induced travel calculator estimates that adding lanes to the I-5 bridge could increase greenhouse gas emissions hundreds of thousands of tons per year.

Real Answer:  Expanded freeway capacity leads to more driving and more greenhouse gas emissions.

Oregon and Washington are being asked to spend $7.5 billion on a giant bridge:  Why won’t anyone show pictures of what it would look like?

The Oregon and Washington highway departments are using an old Robert Moses trick to make their oversized bridge appear smaller than it really is.

The bridge will blot out much of the reviving waterfront and downtown in Vancouver, and put Hayden Island in the shadow of a half-mile long viaduct.

The IBR has distributed misleading and inaccurate images of the proposed bridge, attempting to make it look smaller.

The agency is spending $1.5 million to create a “digital twin” computer model of the IBR, but is keeping it secret to avoid public scrutiny of its design.

Computer visualizations, complete with human-scale animations, are cheap and common for construction projects, such as Vancouver’s proposed waterfront public market–but ODOT and WSDOT have steadfastly refused to provide such visualizations for the IBR.

The proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement Project would be the largest and most expensive public works project in the Portland metro area’s history.  You’d think that if you were spending $7.5 billion, you’d be proud to show the public and elected officials what it will look like.  But in the case of the IBR, you’d be wrong.  What do the Oregon and Washington highway department’s have to hide?

While the IBR project has only released distant aerial photos that make the project look tiny, we obtained a copy of a preliminary version of their 3D computer model, and used it to show how the view from Hayden Island changes with the construction of the new bridge.  (You can use the slider to show how the view changes between the current bridge (on the left) and the proposed IBR (on the right).

The striking difference in the height and scale of the two bridge images shown above contrasts sharply with the official image crated by IBR from the same digital model.  They use the well-worn trick of showing the bridge, not from anywhere on the ground, or where humans are likely to see it, but from a point suspended in the sky, high above the project.

You’d have to be several thousand feet in the air to get this view of the IBR.  This false perspective makes the bridge look tiny.  It’s simply impossible to compare the height of the bridge, for example, to the height of buildings in downtown Vancouver, or get a sense of how much taller the freeway viaducts across Hayden Island are than any of the other structures on the island.

Blotting out the Vancouver waterfront

The proposed bridge will have a river clearance of at least 116 feet—the Coast Guard is asking for 178 feet—and the structure itself is a double-decker that will be between 35 and 40 feet tall, making the overall structure roughly 150 feet tall over much of the river.  Because of that elevation, the bridge requires half-mile long viaduct approach ramps to get traffic from ground level north and south of the river, up to the high level of the crossing (the lengthy viaducts and elevated intersections are more costly than the bridge itself).  This giant structure will tower over the Vancouver waterfront, which in the past decade has been the site of a remarkable urban redevelopment, with offices, shops, housing, and hotels.

Yet ODOT and WSDOT, who’s massive project will completely remake this part of the city has yet to provide a single illustration showing how the city would be affected.  Again, using the IBR’s crude digital model, we were able to produce this image showing how the view along Vancouver’s riverfront will change if the IBR is built.

Just as a point of reference for local residents, the proposed IBR river crossing will be the size of three of Portland’s I-5 Marquam Bridges side-by-side.  The massive new IBR bridge will tower over the waterfront, with associated noise and pollution.  In addition, the viaducts leading to the bridge will be as high, and in some cases higher than adjacent downtown and waterfront buildings.  Seattle just spent more than a decade and $3 billion to remove the Alaskan Way viaduct that blighted the city’s waterfront for more than half a century.  Vancouver appears to be signing up to create the same kind of roadway scarred landscape that Seattle is trying to fix.

Using manipulated drawings to make the new bridge look smaller

The IBR project has purposely avoided providing an elevation, or profile view of the proposed bridge, in order to keep its height and bulk a secret. But a year ago, it did produce a profile drawing, but one that was purposely inaccurate.   In March, 2022, when IBR as part of a navigation report with the US Coast Guard’s bridge permitting process, it produced an intentionally misleading drawing comparing the existing bridge and the new IBR.  The image was dutifully published by the Vancouver Columbian (March 25, 2022):

The diagram of the navigation clearance of the new bridge and old bridge, shown one-over-the-other uses different vertical scales to make the new bridge appear smaller and shorter than the old bridge.  See this from CRC (yellow markings and red text are added by Engineer Bob Ortblad).  The broad yellow band superimposed on the top diagram shows the true height and size of the new bridge.  Notice that the top panel says “not to scale” and while the diagrams use the same horizontal scale, they use different vertical scales.  This is intentional distortion.

A $1.5 million “digital twin”

This agency has no need of crude, not-to-scale drawings.  It has detailed plans, and what’s more, buying a state-of-the-digital model of the bridge. IBR is spending $1.5 million to build a so-called “digital twin“—a deeply detailed computer model of every aspect of the proposed bridge, that will be used for design, construction, monitoring and maintenance.  What, you might reasonably ask, is a digital twin?  It’s not a mere computer model, it’s really much more complicated (and expensive) than that.  IBR explains:

A digital twin, as envisioned in this project, is a portal (a 3D model of the bridge and other associated visual dashboards), through which authoritative data and information about the bridge and related road network can be accessed efficiently and quickly by authorized users along its entire lifecycle—from early project planning to real time operations. It is expected to not only serve as a digital record of the physical structure but also as a process twin whereby future “what if” scenarios related to design decisions, constructability, construction or maintenance activities, emergency operations, etc. can be simulated to a very high degree of precision

The contractor IBR hired to build the “digital twin,” WSP, touts its modeling as being an example of the “metaverse,” essentially a digital alternate reality:

Also today, we can use IoT and artificial intelligence [AI] to add data to visualizations and make decisions across departments; we can put ourselves inside of the virtual model of a city, for example, and interact with it—a process now called the metaverse; we can better relate the design to the context of the world around us We can test and validate elements of infrastructure—bridges, roadways, transit, and buildings—before construction;. we can create dynamic models that simulate and predict how these assets will perform in real-life contexts. Three-dimension reality models provide the basis for visualizing, collaboratively managing, and monitoring changes to infrastructure during the project and when the asset is in operation. (Emphasis added)

WSP has been working on the digital twin of the IBR for nearly three years, since at least June, 2020, according to company documents.  WSP’s software vendor, Bentley, also flogs the IBR digital twin work in its promotional material, saying modeling tasks that formerly took months and months to do, can now be done instantly. In theory, the “digital twin” ought to be a way for the public to see exactly what the project will look like, from any angle,  It is fully possible with such a model to create realistic, on-the-ground images and “walk throughs” of the project that convey exactly what it will look like.  But that’s just a theory, because IBR has explicitly chosen not to create or share such images or visualizations with the public.

The digital twin is a secret

But IBR is doing its best to keep the “digital twin” and the images it would show of the IBR project a secret.  At a March 16, 2023 meeting of a construction industry group in Seattle, IBR’s consultant, WSP, admitted that they were being told to keep the project under wraps so as not to provoke public outcry about the design:

Last night at Construction Management Association of America NW Chapter meeting Kevin Gilson, Director of Design Visualization at WSP USA, presented 3D/4D modeling. When he was asked about a 3D model for the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR), he said “Yes, but it isn’t public yet. There is a model on the website. It’s being produced by the communications team. There is a very detail 3D model. I was going to try and show it, but I am not working on that project. It’s very, very, it’s kept under wraps quite a bit, and I think it’s because of their experience with the first round, trying to tread carefully.”

Personal communication from Bob Ortblad, who attended this meeting, March 17, 2023 (Emphasis added).

City Observatory has filed a public records request to obtain a copy of the model.  IBR officials have declined to provide that model until no earlier than the end of April, 2023.

Concealing images of the proposed giant bridges is a calculated PR strategy

The Interstate Bridge Project has contracted for nearly $10 million in public relations and communications consultants, and they’ve kept a tight lid on project images. A little over a year ago, the IBR project showed its first sketchy images of what the IBR project might look like.  At the time, one of their public relations consultants, Millicent Williams, described the project’s desire to control the dissemination and interpretation of the images:

Thank you, Commissioner Berkman.  I will share that the communications team has discussed,  first of all the fact that once images like this get shared, there will be the opportunity for people to develop a narrative and we’re working to manage that— making direct contact with media outlets to ensure that they have the accurate information and are clear about what these images represent.  Additionally we have asked that disclaimers drafts watermarks all the things that could make sure that folks know that this is not final.  This is concept.

We recognize that there is the possibility that someone might have taken a screenshot of what we just shared and so hopefully, um, we can manage that messaging as well,  and i’m sure that the team is prepared to do that but um that those are things that we’ve thought long and hard about because we want to make sure that we are not stymieing the process or the progress based on our failures to fully disclose where we are in the process and what these images represent.

IBR Executive Steering Group, January 20, 2022 (at 39:54)

Much smaller projects have sophisticated visualizations

Computer graphic simulations of new buildings and construction projects are commonplace—often as a sales and promotion tool.  Developers want to let potential investors and local governments know what a project will look like before it gets built.  That’s exactly what’s happening on the Vancouver waterfront—just not for the IBR project.  The Port of Vancouver is building a new public market building—its take on Seattle’s Pike Place Market—at Terminal One (site of the now demolished Red Lion Hotel).  The port’s architects prepared a detailed model of the public market building and the surrounding area, complete with a video “fly through” showing what the area will look like when the project is complete in a couple of years.  You can even see the current I-5 bridge in their computer video.

The total cost of the public market is on the order of $10 million—roughly the same as what the IBR project has spent on public relations in the past few years.  Yet even though the IBR will cost about 750 times as much, and has such a copious budget for communication, it has not produced a comparable computer rendering, much less a human-level fly-through of the project.

Ironically, the public market modeling doesn’t include the new Interstate Bridge, which will slice through and tower over the Vancouver waterfront.  It will likely go right over the top of this particularly bucolic native garden:

The Columbia River Crossing images were hidden as well.

Hiding the images of what they are planning to build has been going on for more than a decade.  In 2010, Columbian reporter Eric Robinson wrote a front page story for the Vancouver paper, noting that the project had done virtually nothing to show the visual impact of the giant new bridge on downtown Vancouver and its waterfront.  He wrote:

Stand for a minute along Columbia Street near the railroad berm in downtown Vancouver.

Now look up.

A massive steel and concrete structure that today exists only in technical engineering schematics will materialize high above Vancouver’s riverfront within the decade if the proposed Columbia River Crossing sticks to its current schedule. The Interstate 5 bridge will deliver thousands of cars, heavy trucks and light rail trains into the city at roughly the height of an eight-story building.

Washington-based bridge architect Kevin Peterson is appalled.

“It looks like a big damn freeway crossing a railroad staging yard,” he said.

Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt acknowledged the new bridge will cast a long shadow.  . . . 

“It’ll be a monumental structure,” he said.

Yet, you’d scarcely know it by the tenor of public discussion.

Robinson, Erik, “Casting a long shadow.” Columbian; Vancouver, Wash. 01 Aug 2010: A.1.

City officials asked for a ground-level eye-view of the project, but were told it would be too expensive, and no renderings were produced. CRC official Carley Francis (now Southwest Washington WSDOT regional administrator), told Robinson that there was no guarantee they’d produce a street-level simulation of project before construction began in 2012, chiefly because the project—which at the time had spent about $134 million on planning—had “limited resources” to produce such a rendering.

Jonathan Maus, writing at Bike Portland (in 2013), reported much the same when he tried to find realistic and detailed images of the multi-billion dollar bridge project, as Oregon and Washington were being asked to fund the project:

You’d think that with all the support for the Columbia River Crossing down in Salem, lawmakers and their constituents would have a good idea about what their votes — and their tax dollars — will be going toward. But for some reason, CRC and ODOT staff have hidden the project from public view. Despite spending nearly $170 million on consultants and planning thus far, detailed renderings and/or visualizations of key elements of the project are nowhere to be found.

This is not typical of other large infrastructure projects across the country and it begs the question of whether or not CRC and ODOT staff are purposefully pulling the wool over our eyes. (emphasis added)

Our own work at City Observatory shows that the two state DOTs have been going out of their way to conceal what they’re planning to build, and to avoid showing how it will affect downtown Vancouver. For example, it took a public records request to learn that after promising to reduce the width of the CRC highway bridge from 12 lanes to 10 lanes, all the two DOTs did was erase all the references to the actual physical width of the bridge from the project’s environmental impact documents, while leaving in place plans to build a 180 foot wide highway bridge–enough for 12, or even 14 14 travel lanes.

At one point, the Oregon and Washington highway departments actually built a physical 3D model of the bridge.  Photographs of the model were published by a local television station.  But there are no photographs or other evidence of this physical model on the IBR or CRC websites.

The Long History of Using Misleading Images to Sell Urban Highways

Using this kind of illusion  and creatively mis-representing the visual impact of a new construction has a long history in the world of selling highways. Robert Moses famously skewed the illustrations of his proposed Brooklyn Battery Bridge (which would have obliterated much of lower Manhattan and Battery Park); we turn the microphone over to Moses’ biographer Robert Caro, from The Power Broker:

Moses announcement had been accompanied by an “artist’s rendering” of the bridge that created the impression that the mammoth span would have about as much impact on the lower Manhattan Landscape as an extra lamppost. This impression had been created by “rendering” the bridge from directly overhead—way overhead—as it might be seen by a high flying and myopic pigeon. From this bird’s eye view, the bridge and its approaches, their height minimized and only their flat roadways really visible, blended inconspicuously into the landscape. But in asking for Board of Estimate approval, Moses had to submit to the board the actual plans for the bridge. . . .

The proposed bridge anchorage in Battery Park, barely visible on Moses’ rendering, would be a solid mass of stone and concrete equal in size to a ten-story office building. The approach ramp linking the bridge to the West Side Highway, a ramp depicted on the rendering as a narrow path through Battery Park, would actually be a road wider than Fifth Avenue, a road supported on immense concrete piers, and it would cross the entire park—the entire lower tip of Manhattan Island—and curve around the west side of the island almost to Rector Street at heights ranging up to a hundred feet in the air. Not only would anchorage and piers obliterate a considerable portion of Battery Park, they—and the approach road—would block off much of the light not only from what was left of the park but also from the lower floors of every large office building they passed; because the approach ramp was really an elevated highway that would dominate the entire tip of Manhattan, it would depress real estate values throughout the entire area.

Sprawl and tax evasion are the real forces fueling the demand for wider freeways

Highway widening advocates offer up a  a kind of manifest destiny storyline: population and traffic are ever-increasing, and unless we accommodate them we’ll be awash in cars, traffic and gridlock.  The rising tide of cars is treated as a irresistible force of nature.  But is it?  Look more closely and its apparent that rising traffic levels aren’t inevitable, they’re the product of other forces.  And far from solving traffic problems, widening roads makes these problems worse.

In the case of Portland’s proposed $5 billion 5-mile long freeway widening project—the mis-named Interstate Bridge Replacement project—the real forces behind the project aren’t pre-destined levels of car traffic, but instead, are much more prosaic, and questionable:  sprawl and tax evasion.

Sprawl:  Cause and consequence of wider roads

While Oregon has some of the tightest land use controls in the nation, Washington State is still far more accommodating to rural and exurban residential development.  As many critics of the I-5 bridge project have noted, precious few commuters from Washington State to jobs in Oregon use transit, despite the fact that their are good express bus services from Vancouver to Oregon job centers.  (Prior to the pandemic, express buses carried only about 3,000 people per weekday between Oregon and Washington, compared to more than 250,000 vehicles per day crossing the river). A key reason for this auto-dominated travel pattern is that housing growth in Clark County has been driven by exurban sprawl, and workers commuting from these locations travel overwhelmingly by car.  Here’s a map prepared by Seattle’s Sightline Institute showing the comparative patterns of population growth in the Oregon and Washington portions of the metropolitan area between 1990 and 2000.  While Oregon has had little population growth outside its urban growth boundary–a testament to the policies effectiveness–Washington has experienced a rash of exurban development.

This exurban sprawl is both the source of demands for expanded highway capacity on I-5 and elsewhere, and in turn, widening roads simply encourage more such sprawl—a pattern that is repeated in metropolitan areas across the country.  The technical analysis done for the proposed Columbia River Crossing (predecessor of the IBR) estimated that 93 percent of the growth in peak hour trips on I-5 between 2005 and 2030 would result from additional population growth in the suburban fringe of Clark County (i.e. even more purple dots).

Tax evasion fuels traffic growth

While sprawl is one contributor to traffic growth, a second is tax evasion.  Here’s the short story:  Oregon has no retail sales tax; Washington charges its residents one of the nation’s highest rates (over 8 percent).  As a result, Washington residents regularly drive across the Columbia River on one of two Interstate Bridges to shop tax-free in Oregon.  They spend over $1.5 billion per year in Oregon, and effectively evade more than $120 million in sales taxes by doing so.  The average Clark County family of four evades about $1,000 of sales tax each year.

But all these sales tax evasion produces a lot of traffic on the two bridges that cross state lines:  We estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of all the trips crossing the I-5 and I-205 Columbia River bridges are Southwest Washington households driving to shopping centers in Oregon to evade Washington sales tax.  Conveniently, there are major shopping centers at Jantzen Beach and Hayden Meadows (on I-5) and on Airport Way (I-205), both just across the Columbia River into Oregon.   The parking lots of these retail centers are chock-a-block with Washington vehicles.

Far from being inexorable and inevitable forces of nature, the factors driving the growth of traffic between Portland and Vancouver are actually symbolic of dysfunctional and environmentally destructive trends.  Rather than accommodating them, and encouraging more sprawl and tax evasion, we should be making choices that are consistent with our stated values.

California is the first in the nation to establish a Universal Basic Income . . . for cars

One of the most widely discussed alternatives for tackling poverty and inequality head-on is the idea of a “Universal Basic Income”—a payment made to every household to assure it has enough for basic living expenses.  While there have been a few experiments and a lot of political hyperbole, it hasn’t really been tried at scale.  But now, California is on the verge of enacting a Universal Basic Income, but instead of being for people, it’s for cars.

It’s a symptom of our deep car dependence thant faced with somewhat higher gas prices (still lower, in inflation-adjusted terms than a decade ago), politicians are falling all over themselves to insulate cars and driving from their real costs.  It speaks volumes that we’re so quick to allocate resources to cars and so reticent to have similar energy when it comes to tackling poverty.

High gas prices are a potent political issue for car-dependent Americans, and that’s prompted elected officials to scramble to come up with ways to ease the pain.  California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed giving California car-owners a $400 debit card for each car they own, at a total cost of an estimated $9 billion.  It’s effectively a universal basic income (UBI), but for cars.

In an ironic parallel, the City of Oakland is reporting the results of its own recent experiment with a kind of UBI for transportation.  Oakland gave $500 households $300 debit cards that they could spend on a range of transportation services, like bus travel, bikes, scooters and ride-hailed trips.  They then surveyed participants to see how their travel patterns changed.  Overall, about 40 percent of participating households reported reducing their single occupancy car trips.  The idea of a flexible transportation allowance is great way to directly address the equity concerns of our transportation system, especially as we begin using road pricing as a way to make the transportation system function more efficiently.  But it’s striking that while a universal basic mobility allowance merits only a tiny and tentative $150,000 experiment, a universal car allowance worth nearly $10 billion is likely to move forward with little, if any consideration of its social and environmental effects.

Other states have taken a different approach to reducing transport costs, with a similar car bias.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul is proposing a gas tax holiday (which may or may not save motorists money, depending on whether oil companies pass along the savings to customers).  Of course, the cost of paying for maintaining the state’s roads will just be shifted to others, so the savings mostly an illusion.

There’s a good argument that Newsom’s debit cards directly undermine the state’s climate goals, especially by handing out money based on the number of cars a household owns. Both the California and New York plans give fiscal relief to car owners.   You have to own a car to get a California debit cards, and somewhat perversely, households with two cars (who tend to have higher incomes) get twice as much relief as families with a single car.   But the incentive effects of the tax cut are even worse than California’s debit card approach:  people will save in proportion to how much gas they buy.  Those who don’t drive much, drive fuel efficient vehicles, or who don’t own or drive cars at all, will get no relief.  The big winners will be those who own fuel inefficient vehicles and drive a lot.  At least with the California debit card approach, families don’t have to buy more gasoline to get more relief.  They can spend the $400 on anything else they like, including for example, a bus pass or part of the purchase price of a new bike.

Gas tax holidays and California’s universal basic income policy for cars are emblematic of the fundamental inequity of our current transportation policy.  Measures, like a universal basic mobility allowance, which would help those most in need and incentivize more sustainable transportation are subject to protracted experimentation at trivial scale.  Meanwhile, rising gas prices prompt sweeping and ill-considered policies that will send most benefits to those who drive the most, and which will further incentivize more driving and environmental destruction.

Portland and Oregon leaders shouldn’t commit to a $5 billion project without an investment grade analysis (IGA) of toll revenues

Not preparing an IGA exposes the state to huge financial risk: It will have to make up toll revenue shortfalls, 

The difference between an IGA and ODOT forecasts is huge:  half the traffic, double the toll rate.

There’s no reason to delay preparing the investment grade analysis:  The federal government and financial markets require it, and all of the needed information is available

If you don’t prepare an IGA before making a commitment to this project, you are flying blind

Portland are a leaders are being asked to greenlight the so-called Interstate Bridge Replacement Project, which is projected by its proponents to cost as much as $5 billion.  But they’re being asked to give a project a go-ahead with only the sketchiest financial information.  The project’s cost estimates are slightly warmed over versions of decade old estimates prepared for the failed Columbia River Crossing.  Ominously, the details of where the money will come from—who will pay and how much—are superficial and vague.

One thing project advocates grudgingly admit is that the I-5 bridge replacement can’t be financed without tolls.  Program administrator Greg Johnson and Oregon Transportation Commission Chair Bob Van Brocklin have repeatedly said as much.  But how much money tolls will produce and how high tolls will be are never clearly mentioned.  Johnson has said tolls will provide “about a third of project costs.”

Knowing how much money tolls will produce, and how high tolls will have to be to produce that revenue is the central financial question.

Currently the I-5 bridge carries about 130,000 vehicles per day.  But that volume is predicated on the bridge being free.  Charging people to use the bridge would dramatically reduce the number of crossings.  As we’ve documented at City Observatory, when tolls were added to a similar crossing, the I-65 bridges across the Ohio River in Louisville, traffic levels fell by half.

Because tolling depresses traffic, you can’t accurately estimate how much toll revenue a bridge will produce without a detailed model that accounts for this traffic depressing effect.

The models routinely used by state highway departments don’t accurately account for the effect of tolling on traffic volumes.  They tend to dramatically over-predict the amount of traffic on tolled roadways, which has led to over-built facilities that don’t generate enough toll-paying traffic to cover their costs.

Financial markets and the federal government, who are asked to loan money up-front (with a promise to be repaid by future tolls) simply refuse to believe state highway department traffic forecasts.  Instead, they insist that states pay for an “investment grade” traffic and revenue forecast.  You can’t sell toll-backed bonds on private financial markets, and you can’t even apply for federal TIFIA loans, without first getting an investment grade forecast.  In January, Portland’s Metro Council adopted a statement of Values, Outcomes and Actions governing the I-5 project, directing the Oregon Department of Transportation to prepare an Investment Grade Analysis of the project:

As the part of the finance plan, engage professionals with expertise in financing massive complex transportation infrastructure construction projects to conduct and deliver the results of an investment-grade traffic and revenue study of the design options.

That’s a critical step to making and informed decision.

What is an investment grade analysis?

Investment grade forecasts are generally prepared by one of a handful of financial consulting firms.  These studies start with the traffic models used by state highway departments, but make much more realistic assumptions about future population and employment growth, the likelihood of economic cycles, and critically, the effect of tolling on levels of traffic.  As a result, investment grade analyses invariably predict lower levels of traffic that the models used by state highway departments.  Because traffic levels are lower, tolls have to be higher to produce any given amount of revenue.

And the differences between investment grade analysis and highway department forecasts are not trivial:  they are huge.  The Oregon and Washington highway departments prepared traffic and toll estimates for the Columbia River Crossing’s Final Environmental Impact Statement published in 2011.  Those estimates were that the I-5 bridges would carry 178,000 vehicles per day in 2030, and that minimum tolls would be $1.34 to pay for about one-third of the cost of the project.  The Investment Grade Analysis for this project, prepared by CDM Smith on behalf of the two agencies in 2013 estimated that in 2030, the I-5 bridges would carry just 95,000 vehicles per day in 2030, and that tolls would be a minimum of $2.60 each way in order to cover a third of project costs.  In short, the initial highway department estimates overstated future traffic levels by double, and understated needed tolls by half.

The starkly different figures in the investment grade analysis called into question the size of the project, which was predicated on the exaggerated highway department forecasts.  If a tolled bridge would carry dramatically fewer vehicles than the existing bridge, there was no justification for building an expensive wider structure and approaches.  The money spent expanding capacity on the bridge would be wasted because fewer vehicles would use it.  Also, the dramatically different traffic figures also meant that the environmental analysis contained in the FEIS was simply wrong.

Investment Grade Analyses are required for financial prudence

The reason that the federal government and financial markets insist on the preparation of an investment grade analysis is so that they don’t get stuck holding the bag when traffic levels, and toll revenues fall short of the excessively optimistic expectations of state highway departments.  Around the county dozens of toll roads and bridges have failed to produce expected revenues, leading to delinquencies, defaults, and bankruptcies.

If anything, state lawmakers have an even larger financial stake in the IBR project than do financial markets or the federal government.  Financial markets, for example, will insist on additional state guarantees, besides repayment just from the stream of toll revenues.  They’ll require states to pledge other revenues to repay bonds, in addition to insisting on the investment grade analysis.  The 2021 Oregon Legislature passed HB 3055, which authorizes ODOT to pledge state gas tax revenues and future federal grant monies to repay holders of state-issued toll bonds.

Because the state is ultimately liable for any toll-revenue shortfalls, it has an even higher stake than private lenders or the federal government  in knowing the true level of future toll revenues as would be disclosed in an investment grade analysis.

Why ODOT doesn’t want the public to see the IGA first

ODOT and WSDOT are greatly resisting calls to prepare an investment grade analysis.  Their current project schedule doesn’t call for conducting the analysis until 2024 or 2025–well after the design of the bridge is settled and too late to consider a smaller or cheaper alternative.  The highway departments variously claim that its “too expensive” or “premature” to carry out the IGA.

There’s no technical reason it can’t be prepared now.  The base transportation data have been gathered, and the regional model exists.  The agencies say the IGA is expensive, but it’s far less costly than what the agency has spent already on public relations, and the money has to be spent anyhow.  And the IGA will continue to be valid for several years—and can easily be updated once it is complete, if that becomes necessary.  You can’t save any money by delaying.  The only real reason to put off preparing an IGA is because it will show that the IBR will carry vastly less traffic than the DOTs predict, and that tolls will have to be much higher than they’re implying.  In short, the DOTs don’t want the IGA because it will present a definitive case against the over-sized project that they’re building.  Financial markets and the Federal government will insist on the IGA before they make their decision:  the only ones being denied access to this vital financial information are local leaders and state lawmakers who will have to pay for the project.  According to DOT plans, they’ll find out the results of the IGA only after it’s too late to do any good.

Their plan is clearly to convince local and state leaders  irrevocably commit to the construction of a much larger project than could possibly be  justified it anyone saw the results of the investment grade analysis.  It’s obvious from the project’s unwillingness to do anything other than advance a single alternative (a 164-foot wide bridge, enough for ten or twelve lanes of traffic) into the next environmental analysis, that they don’t want the results of an investment grade analysis to undercut their contrived case for a massive structure.

State Highway Department Forecasts are Flawed

As we’ve written before, the IBR project is a scene-for-scene remake of the Columbia River Crossing debacle. Just as they are doing now, the state highway departments published grossly inflated traffic forecasts.  In 2010, the Oregon State Treasurer hired Rob Bain, an internationally recognized expert on toll revenue financing, and author of “Toll Road Traffic and Revenue Forecasts: An Interpreters Guide” to assist in the financial analysis of the CRC.   He found numerous flaws and biases–which prompted calls for the investment grade analysis that produced dramatically different results than the highway department projects.  Specifically, Bain reviewed the CRC traffic and revenue forecasts prepared for the project’s environmental impact statement on behalf of the Oregon State Treasurer.  He stated:

Green cities will be less hurt by higher gas prices; Sprawling cities are much more vulnerable to gas price hikes.

In sprawling metros like Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Nashville and Oklahoma City, higher gas prices will cost the average household twice as much as households living in compact metros like San Francisco, Boston, Portland and Seattle.

Rising gas prices are a pain, but they hurt most if you live in a sprawling metro where you have to drive long distances to work, shopping, schools and social activities.  Some US metros are far less vulnerable to the negative effects of rising gas prices because they have dense neighborhoods, compact urban development, good transit, and bikeable, walkable streets.  Among the 50 largest metro areas, the best performers enable their residents to drive less than half as much as the most car-dependent metros.  Those who live in metro areas where you have to drive, on average, 50 miles or more per day (places like Oklahoma City, Nashville and Jacksonville) will be hit twice as hard by higher fuel prices than the typical household living in a place like San Francisco, Boston or Portland, where people drive, on average, fewer than 25 miles per day.  When gas prices go up, it’s easy being green:  These compact, less car-dependent metros and their residents, will experience far less economic dislocation than metros where long daily car trips are built-in to urban form.

Gasoline prices have shot up in recent days, thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.   A year ago, average gas prices nationally were under $3 gallon.  In February, they averaged around $3.30 per gallon.  After the Russian invasion began, oil prices and gas prices jumped.  On March 14, the national average was $4.30, and rising rapidly, with much higher prices in some markets.

There’s the usual barrage of media hand-wringing about the impact of high gas prices, notwithstanding the widespread support for backing Ukraine, even if it means higher oil prices.  Some 71 percent of Americans favored banning Russian oil imports even at the cost of higher gas prices.  As high as they seem, gas prices today are just now approaching the levels recorded in 2008, when gas prices peaked at $5.09 per gallon (in 2022 dollars).

In our largely car-dependent nation, higher gas prices feel painful, but some Americans feel the pain far more deeply than others, and some feel it not at all.  There’s been more than a little bike advocate schadenfreude on Twitter, pointing out that those who travel by bike or on foot aren’t feeling the pain of higher gas prices.

I want to apologize on behalf of the bike/walk/transit people if we seem smug about gas prices. It’s just… this is the moment we have been preparing for our entire lives 😂

— Angie Schmitt🚶‍♀️ (@schmangee) March 11, 2022

But this isn’t just about individual choices and behavior:  whole communities can be more or less vulnerable to gas price shocks, depending on how much land use patterns effectively necessitate driving.

Some metro areas are vastly more car-dependent than others, and as a result, are more vulnerable to gas price hikes.  We can get a good idea of which metros will be most affected by price hikes by looking at data on average travel distances in different cities.  The big data firm Streetlight Data published its estimates of the amount of daily driving per person for large US metros.  We’ve tabulated their publicly released data for the period just before the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic, to get a reasonable baseline for comparing travel patterns.

On average, the residents of the typical large metro area in the US drive about 30 miles per person per day (that’s a bit higher estimate than the one provided by the US Department of Transportation).  But there are extremely wide variations in average driving among metro areas.  In general, older, denser metros with more extensive transit systems seem to have dramatically less driving per person than newer, sprawling Sunbelt metros with weak transit.

The metros least likely to feel the pain of higher gas prices include Buffalo, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Portland and Seattle, where metro residents drive about 25 percent less than average.

On the other hand, the metros most vulnerable to higher gas prices are those where, due to job and population sprawl, people tend to drive much further.  These highly vulnerable metros include Oklahoma City, Orlando, Nashville, Dallas, Charlotte and Atlanta, where the typical resident drives 50 or more miles per day, according to the Streetlight estimates, nearly double the typical metro area.

Average Miles Driven Per Person Per Day Prior to Covid-21 Pandemic (Streetlight Data)

As we’ve pointed out before, residents of more compact metro areas, with better transit and closer destinations earn the equivalent of a huge green dividend, even when gas is cheap, because they spend far less on cars and gasoline.  Meanwhile, their counterparts in decentralized metros pay a “sprawl tax.”  When oil prices rise, the pain falls disproportionately on those who live in metros where they have to drive a lot.

The differences are significant.  The households living in metros where people drive 50 miles per person per day are conservatively buying twice as much fuel as those living in metros where people drive only 25 miles per day.  So while a family in a compact metro area would be buying say 100 gallons or so of fuel a month, its counterpart in a sprawling metro would be buying 200 gallons.  So a $1 increase in the price of gas would hit about $1,200 harder over the course of a year in a sprawling metro than in a compact one.

In the face of rising fuel prices—whether from a war, or from the the long overdue need to reflect the true social and environmental costs associated with fossil fuels—communities where people don’t have to drive as much, or drive as far, have a real economic advantage over more car-dependent places.  That’s a consideration that ought to play a larger role in local, state and national policies going forward.

Reporters:  read this before you write a “cost of congestion” story.

Congestion cost studies are a classic example of pseudo-science:  Big data and bad assumptions produce meaningless results

Using this absurd methodology, you can show:

Waiting at traffic signals costs us $8 billion a year—ignoring what it would cost in time and money to have roads with no traffic lights.

Our lack of flying cars costs us hundreds of billions of dollars of travel time—never mind that putting everyone in a flying car would be financially and physically impossible.

Something is actually a “cost” only if there’s a cheaper and physically possible alternative

There’s a robust literature debunking the congestion cost studies from Texas Transportation Institute, Inrix, and Tom-Tom.

Every year or so, one or more traffic-counting organizations trots out a report claiming that congestion is costing us tens of billions dollars each year.  Despite the “big data” and elaborate estimates, the results are simply bunk, because they’re based on a flawed premise.  Each of these reports calculates as the “cost” of congestion how much longer a trip takes at peak hours compared to off-peak hours, but fails to define what actions or policies could produce such a change in traffic, and how much they would cost.  Every one of these reports tallies up the supposed “costs” of congestion, without telling how to solve the problem or what it would cost.

Traffic Lights Cost Billions

You can apply this idea of computing a “cost” to any kind of waiting.  We’ve done it, tongue-in-cheek, but calculator in hand, for cappuccino.  Others take this notion seriously.  For example, crack statisticians at the University of Maryland have sifted through reams, nay gigabytes, of big data, and have produced a comprehensive, nationwide estimate of the amount of time lost when we sit, waiting for red lights to turn green.

According to these University of Maryland estimates, time lost sitting at traffic signals amounts to 329 million vehicle hours of delay, and costs us $8.6 billion dollars per year.  They estimate that time spent waiting at traffic signals is roughly three-fifths as great as the 561 million vehicle hours of delay associated with routine “recurring” traffic congestion.

This University of Maryland study calculates that roughly 19 percent of all traffic congestion is due to waiting at traffic signals.  Those traffic lights do get in your way and slow you down.

Traffic signals cause delays as vehicles queue at intersections. In 10 states, traffic signals are the top cause of traffic congestion, though congestion levels overall remain relatively low in those states. For example, even though Alaska ranked highest in the country in percentage of delay caused by signals at 53%, it ranked 42^nd in terms of total hours of delay caused by signals.

As an accounting exercise, there’s little reason to doubt these calculations. But whether they constitute a “loss” is highly doubtful, because there’s no question that we’d all collectively lose more time in travel if there were no traffic lights.  The policy implication of this finding is not that we should be tearing out or turning off traffic signals.  That would be absurd, of course.  And what the claims of time spent waiting at traffic lights constitute an actual “loss” rests on the assumption that there’s some other traffic-light free way of managing the flow of traffic at intersections that would involve less total travel time for those now waiting.  Simply getting rid of traffic lights—and say replacing them with stop signs—would likely decrease the throughput of many intersections and actually increase delays (though it might beneficially reduce traffic speeds and improve safety for vulnerable road users). Theoretically one might replace every single traffic light in the US with a fully grade separated interchange without stops.

Let’s suppose, for a moment, that you could instantly replace all of the 330,000 or so traffic signals in the US with grade-separated interchanges that eliminated traffic signals.  That might eliminate all the time “lost” by vehicles waiting at traffic lights, but it would come at a cost.  At say, $10 million per intersection (which is probably a conservative estimate) that would cost about $3.3 trillion, all that to save maybe $8.6 billion per year.  Time spent waiting at traffic lights is costly, only if you ignore the vastly greater cost of doing anything to try to reduce it.

It’s easy to point out that the theory about the “time loss” due to traffic lights is pretty silly.  But what’s true of the elaborate (but fundamentally wrong-headed) estimates of the time “lost” to traffic signals is that it also holds for all the other estimates of supposed congestion costs.  For years, a range of highly numerate charlatans have been purporting to compute the value of time lost to traffic congestion. The congestion cost studies generated by the Texas Transportation Institute, Inrix, Tom-Tom and others invariably conclude that traffic congestion costs us billions of dollars a year.  Their copious data creates the illusion of statistical precision without providing any actually useful knowledge.  They generate heat, but don’t shed any light: The congestion cost estimates are part of the propaganda effort of the road-builders, who assert we need to spend even more billions to widen roads to recoup these losses.

It’s an example of a measurement that’s literally true, but quite meaningless.  It’s true in the sense that people probably due spend millions of hours, collectively sitting at traffic lights or traveling more slowly because of congestion.  It’s meaningless, because there’s not some real world alternative where you could build enough road capacity to eliminate these delays.  So, as an elaborate accounting exercise, you can use big data and computing power to produce this estimate, but the result is a factoid that conveys no useful, actionable information—just as we’ve shown with our Cappuccino Congestion Index, which totes up the billions of dollars American’s “lose” waiting in line at coffee shops.

Where are my flying cars?  Think of all the congestion costs they’ll save!

The sky’s the limit if you want to generate large estimates of the supposed time “lost” due to slower than imaginable travel.  Consider for example flying cars, which according to this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), are just about to darken our skies.  One company, ASKA, is showing a four-seat prototype that can whisk you and a friend at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, land in the space of a helipad, and park in an area no larger than a conventional parking space.

Unsurprisingly, the flying car advocates are pitching it as a solution to traffic congestion (move over Elon Musk):

. . . who doesn’t want to hop over the traffic? The Aska A5 can fly at a maximum speed of 150 mph and travel 250 miles on a single charge. That could cut a 100-mile car trip down to just 30 minutes. Aska’s Kaplinsky sees the A5 flying car tackling long commutes, allowing them to move to more affordable communities further away from big cities and reduce the number of regular cars they own, he said, adding that most people would probably use them when needed through a ride-sharing service

If you could travel by flying car to all your destinations, it would shave hours a day off your total travel time.  Imagine all the time we could save if everybody had a flying car, and what those savings would be worth.  With a spreadsheet and some travel data, you could work out an estimate of how many million hours might be saved and how many tens or hundreds billions of dollars that saved travel time would be worth.  You could produce a report arguing that the personal flying car shortage costs us in lost time and money.  It would be a large but meaningless number, because there’s no world where its financially feasible, much less physically possible, for everyone to take every trip by flying car.  The price per flying car is a cool $789,000 (plus operating costs), and there aren’t enough heliports or heliport-adjacent landing spots to accommodate everyone; not to mention that there’s no air traffic control system for thousands of such vehicles moving over cities.  The only way to make meaning of such numbers is in the context of plausible, real-world alternatives.  And that’s exactly what these cost of congestion studies almost invariably fail to consider.  Something is only a “cost” if there’s an actual practical alternative that would save the lost time without incurring even greater monetary costs in doing so.  Imaginary savings from an impossible, or impossibly expensive alternative aren’t savings at all.

It’s tempting to believe that more data will make the answers to our vexing problems, like traffic congestion, clearer.  But the reverse is often true:  an avalanche of big data obscure a fundamental truth.  That’s what’s going on here.

More Background on Congestion Cost Reports

City Observatory has written extensively on the flaws of past congestion cost studies.  Here are some of our commentaries:

• The Cappuccino Congestion Index:  Understanding the flawed premises of congestion cost reports.
• It’s Back and Dumber than Ever (the 2021 Urban Mobility Report).
• Another Tall Tale from the Texas Transportation Institute
• The Top 20 reasons to ignore the Urban Mobility Report.
• It’s back, and it’s still wrong:  The Urban Mobility Report.
• The Top 10 reasons to ignore the Urban Mobility Report.
• Is traffic worse?  The Urban Mobility Report can’t tell us.
• TomTom says Portland is winning the fight on traffic congestion.
• Want less traffic congestion?  Reduce demand.
• Congestion Cost Studies:  Big Data, Flawed Assumptions, Meaningless Results
• Ben and Jerry explain why we have traffic congestion.  
• We’ll always have traffic congestion as long as we pay people to drive.

Want to know more?

Really want to wonk out on all the methodological, conceptual and data flaws in these congestion cost reports?  Here are two key resources:  First, our own Measuring Urban Transportation Performance report:

And second, Todd Litman of Victoria Transportation Policy Institute’s critique of the urban mobility report.

A new study calculates that twenty percent of all time “lost” in travel is due to traffic lights

Finally, proof for the Lachner Theorem:  Traffic signals are a major cause of traffic delay

Another classic example of pseudo-science:  Big data and bad assumptions produce meaningless results

When I was in graduate school, I shared a house in Berkeley with five roommates.  Once a week we’d pool our food dollars, and pile into Archie Lachner’s ’67 Falcon and drive across town to Lucky, Safeway or the Co-Op, and mount a group shopping expedition for the week.  This was in the late 70s, just after Berkeley had installed a series of traffic diverters to stop cut-through driving in residential neighborhoods.  Our driver, Archie, repeatedly chose routes that were blocked by one diverter and then another.  He cursed at the inconvenience:  “These traffic diverters, they get in your way, they slow you down.”  That prompted a heated debate about the merits of diverters.  Archie defended the inherent right of drivers to go wherever they wanted.  Others in the car said they could see how people who lived on these streets might appreciate the diverters cutting down on or at least slowing traffic. Archie had to turn around at least twice to avoid diverters, and as we finally got near the grocery store, we came to to a stop at a red traffic signal.  From the back seat, someone said:  “These traffic lights, they get in your way, they slow you down.”    Offended, Archie, spun the wheel and drove home–“if you can’t respect the driver, you won’t get a ride.”  Despite the protests, Archie drove a couple of miles back home, and the five other roommates had to repeat the trip in another car.

Thus was born the Lachner theory of traffic congestion:  Traffic lights get in your way and slow you down.  For decades the theory has been wanting for actual quantification, but at last, we have it.  Crack statisticians at the University of Maryland have sifted through reams, nay gigabytes, of big data, and have produced a comprehensive, nationwide estimate of the amount of time lost when we sit, waiting for red lights to turn green.

According to these University of Maryland estimates, time lost sitting at traffic signals amounts to 329 million vehicle hours of delay, and costs us $8.6 billion dollars per year.  Time spent waiting at traffic signals is roughly three-fifths as great as the 561 million vehicle hours of delay associated with routine “recurring” traffic congestion.

This new study from the University of Maryland finally vindicates the Lachner theorem.  By their reckoning, roughly 19 percent of all traffic congestion is due to waiting at traffic signals.  Those traffic lights do get in your way and slow you down.

Traffic signals cause delays as vehicles queue at intersections. In 10 states, traffic signals are the top cause of traffic congestion, though congestion levels overall remain relatively low in those states. For example, even though Alaska ranked highest in the country in percentage of delay caused by Signals at 53%, it ranked 42^nd in terms of total hours of delay caused by signals.

As an accounting exercise, there’s little reason to doubt these calculations. But whether they constitute a “loss” is highly doubtful, because there’s no question that we’d all collectively lose more time in travel if there were no traffic lights.  The policy implication of this finding is not that we should be tearing out or turning off traffic signals.  That would be absurd, of course.  And what the claims of time spent waiting at traffic lights constitute an actual “loss” rests on the assumption that there’s some other traffic-light free way of managing the flow of traffic at intersections that would involve less total travel time for those now waiting.  Simply getting rid of traffic lights—and say replacing them with stop signs—would likely decrease the throughput of many intersections and actually increase delays (though it might beneficially reduce traffic speeds and improve safety for vulnerable road users). Theoretically one might replace every single traffic light in the US with a fully grade separated interchange without stops.

Let’s suppose, for a moment, that you could instantly replace all of the 330,000 or so traffic signals in the US with grade-separated interchanges that eliminated traffic signals.  That might eliminate all the time “lost” by vehicles waiting at traffic lights, but it would come at a cost.  At say, $10 million per intersection (which is probably a conservative estimate) that would cost about $3.3 trillion, all that to save maybe $8.6 billion per year.  Time spent waiting at traffic lights is costly, only if you ignore the vastly greater cost of doing anything to try to reduce it.

It’s easy to point out that the Lachner Theorem about the “time loss” due to traffic lights is pretty silly.  But what’s true of the elaborate (but fundamentally wrong-headed) estimates of the time “lost” to traffic signals is that it also holds for all the other estimates of supposed congestion costs.  For years, a range of highly numerate charlatans have been purporting to compute the value of time lost to traffic congestion. The congestion cost studies generated by the Texas Transportation Institute, Inrix, Tom-Tom and others invariably conclude that traffic congestion costs us billions of dollars a year.  Their copious data creates the illusion of statistical precision without providing any actually useful knowledge.  They generate heat, but don’t shed any light: The congestion cost estimates are part of the propaganda effort of the road-builders, who assert we need to spend even more billions to widen roads to recoup these losses.

It’s an example of a measurement that’s literally true, but quite meaningless.  It’s true in the sense that people probably due spend millions of hours, collectively sitting at traffic lights or traveling more slowly because of congestion.  It’s meaningless, because there’s not some real world alternative where you could build enough road capacity to eliminate these delays.  So, as an elaborate accounting exercise, you can use big data and computing power to produce this estimate, but the result is a factoid that conveys no useful, actionable information—just as we’ve shown with our Cappuccino Congestion Index, which totes up the billions of dollars American’s “lose” waiting in line at coffee shops.

The sky’s the limit if you want to generate large estimates of the supposed time “lost” to slower than imaginable travel.  Consider for example flying cars or helicopters.  If you could travel by helicopter to all your destinations, it would shave hours a day off your total travel time.  With a spreadsheet and some travel data, you could work out an estimate of how many million hours might be saved and how many billions of dollars that saved travel time would be worth.  You could produce a report arguing that the personal helicopter shortage costs us in lost time and money.  It would be a large but meaningless number, because there’s no world where its financially feasible, much less physically possible, for everyone to take every trip by helicopter.

The only way to make meaning of such numbers is in the context of plausible, real-world alternatives.  And that’s exactly what these cost of congestion studies almost invariably fail to consider.  Something is only a “cost” if there’s an actual practical alternative that would save the lost time without incurring even greater monetary costs in doing so.  Imaginary savings from an impossible, or impossibly expensive alternative aren’t savings at all.  All of the evidence about induced travel shows that expanding capacity to try and reduce time “lost” to congestion is ultimately futile:  more capacity encourages more travel, induces more sprawl, and does nothing to reduce congestion and delay.

It’s a welcome sign that one recent report acknowledged this fundamental fact.  To their credit, at least Tom-Tom acknowledges that adding capacity is futile, or even-counterproductive:

Developing road infrastructures and increasing the capacity isn’t the solution. “When a new road is built, it is only a matter of time before more vehicles are added to the road, offsetting this initial easing: it’s called the traffic demand dilemma”, Ralf-Peter Schäfer said. Change behaviours and traffic patterns can make a significant difference. Congestion is non-linear: once traffic goes beyond a certain threshold, congestion increases exponentially. Discouraging drivers to drive during peak rush hour can lead to big improvements, as proven during the pandemic.

And the purveyors of congestion cost estimates almost never point to the only solution that’s been proven to reduce congestion:  road pricing.  Even a modest system of time-based user fees could dramatically reduce congestion.

It’s tempting to believe that more data will make the answers to our vexing problems, like traffic congestion, clearer.  But the reverse is often true:  an avalanche of big data obscure a fundamental truth.  That’s what’s going on here.

Widening freeways is no way to promote equity.  The proposed $5 billion widening of I-5 between Portland and Vancouver is purportedly being undertaken with “an equity lens,” but widening Portland’s I-5 freeway serves higher income, predominantly white workers commuting from Washington suburbs to jobs in Oregon.

The median income of peak hour, drive alone commuters to Oregon from Clark County is $106,000; significantly higher than for the region as a whole (about $78,000).  

More than 53 percent of peak hour drive alone commuters are from households with incomes over $100,000; fewer than 15 percent of these peak hour car commuters have incomes under $50,000 annually.

Some 86 percent of peak hour, drive-alone commuters are non-HIspanic whites, according to the 2019 American Community Survey; only 14 percent of these peak hour car commuters are persons of color.  Peak hour drivers are half as likely to be people of color (14 percent) as are residents of the region (28 percent).

Clark County is less diverse than the rest of the Portland metro area; its residents of color are vastly more likely to work at jobs in Clark County than to commute to jobs in Oregon.

The proposal to spend $5 billion to widen a 5-mile stretch of I-5 between Portland and Vancouver is being marketed with a generous dose of equity washing.  While it is branded the “Interstate Bridge Replacement” or IBR,  replacing the bridge is less than a quarter of the total cost; most of the expense  involves plans to double the width of the freeway to handle more peak hour traffic. The project has gone to some lengths to characterize suburban Clark County as an increasingly diverse population to create the illusion that the freeway widening project is primarily about helping low and moderate income households and people of color travel through the region.  A quick look at Census data shows these equity claims are simply false.  Peak hour freeway travelers commuting from homes in Washington to jobs in Oregon are overwhelmingly wealthy and white compared to the region’s average resident.

What this project would do is widen from 6 lanes, to as many as 14 lanes, five miles of Interstate 5 between Portland and Vancouver.  The principal reason for the project is a claim that traffic volumes on I-5 cause the road to be congested.  But congestion is primarily a peak hour problem, and is caused by a large and largely uni-directional flow of daily commuter traffic.  About 60,000 Clark County residents work at jobs in Oregon, and they commute across either the I-5 or I-205 bridges.  Fewer than a third that many Oregonians work in Clark County, with the result being that the principal traffic tie-ups coincide with workers driving from Clark County in the morning, and back to Clark County in the evening.  Plainly, this is a project that is justified largely on trying to provide additional capacity for these commuters.  That being the case, who are they?

Census data show that the beneficiaries of the IBR project would overwhelmingly be whiter and higher income than the residents of the Portland metro area.  As with most suburbs in the United States, Clark County’s residents, who are those most likely to use the IBR project, are statistically whiter and wealthier than the residents of the rest of the metropolitan area.  In addition, the most regular users of the I-5 and I-205 bridges are much more likely to be white and higher income than the average Clark County resident.  This is especially true of peak hour work commuting from Clark County Washington to jobs in Oregon, which is disproportionately composed of higher income, non-Hispanic white residents.

Peak hour, drive-alone commuters are overwhelmingly white and wealthy

Data from the American Community Survey enable us to identify the demographic characteristics of peak hour, drive-alone commuters going from Clark County Washington to jobs in Oregon on a daily basis. Here are the demographics of the nearly 20,000 workers who drive themselves from Clark County to jobs in Oregon, and who leave their homes between 6:30 AM and 8:30 AM daily.  Some 53 percent of peak hour, drive-alone commuters from Clark County to Oregon jobs lived in households with annual incomes of more than $100,000.  The median income of these peak hour drivers was $106,000 in 2019, well above the averages for Clark County and the region.

Fully 86 percent of the peak hour, drive-along commuters from Clark County to Oregon jobs were non-Hispanic whites.  Only about 14 percent of these peak hour drivers were persons of color.  The racial/ethnic composition of these peak hour car commuters is far less diverse than that of Clark County, or the region.  Clark County workers who work in Clark County are about 50 percent more likely to be people of color than those who commute to jobs in Oregon.

Clark County is whiter and wealthier than the region and Portland

Suburban Clark County, Washington is whiter and wealthier than the rest of the Portland metropolitan area, and the City of Portland. Clark County may be more racially and ethnically diverse than it once was, but so is the entire nation.  And it’s still disproportionately whiter and wealthier than the rest of the region.  Only about 23 percent of its residents are people of color, compared to about 38 percent for the region as a whole, and about 30 percent for Portland, according to the 2019 American Community Survey. Clark County’s median household income of $80,500 is higher than for the region ($78,400) and for the City of Portland ($76,200).

Few low income and workers of color commute to Oregon from Clark County

Not only is Clark County less diverse than the rest of the Portland region, only a small fraction of its low income workers and workers of color commute to jobs in Oregon at the peak hour.  More than ten times as many low income workers and workers of color who live in Clark County work at jobs in Clark County than commute to jobs in Oregon.  About 38,000 Clark County workers in households with incomes of $50,000 or less work at jobs in Clark County; only about 2,800 are peak hour, drive-alone commuters to jobs in Oregon.  About 31,000 Clark County workers of color work at jobs in Clark County.  If we’re concerned about addressing the transportation needs of low income workers and workers of color in Clark County, we should probably focus our attention on the vast majority of them who are working at jobs in the county, not the comparatively small number commuting to Oregon.

Middle and upper income households are far more likely to commute to jobs in Oregon

In general, for Clark County residents, the higher your income, the more likely you are to commute to a job in Oregon.  Only about 1 in 5 workers in households with incomes less than $40,000 in Clark County commute to jobs in Oregon.  About 30 percent of workers in middle and upper income families in Clark County commute to Oregon jobs, meaning that these higher income households are about 50 percent more likely to commute to jobs in Oregon than lower income households.

Data notes

Data for this post is from 2019 American Community Survey, via the indispensabile  University of Minnesota IPUMS project:

Steven Ruggles, Sarah Flood, Ronald Goeken, Josiah Grover, Erin Meyer, Jose Pacas and Matthew Sobek. IPUMS USA: Version 10.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2021. https://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V10.0.

The Oregon and Washington transportation departments are using a biased, unscientific survey to market their $5 billion I-5 freeway widening project.

The survey over-represents daily bridge users by a factor of 10 compared to the general population.

The IBR survey undercounts lower and middle income households and people of color and overstates the opinions of White non-hispanics, higher income households, and Clark County residents

As we’ve noted, highway builders are increasingly engaging in woke-washing, claiming—after decades of experience in which freeway projects have devastated communities of color and destroyed city neighborhoods across the country—that wider freeways will somehow be a good thing for low income people and people of color.

The latest example of this comes from the sales campaign to promote the $5 billion I-5 freeway widening between Portland and Vancouver Washington, misleadingly branded as the “Interstate Bridge Replacement” (IBR) project.  The reality is pretty simple:  the primary beneficiaries of a wider roadway would be higher income, overwhelmingly white commuters who drive daily from suburbs in Washington State to jobs in Oregon.  As we documented last month, the peak hour drive-alone car commuters who cross the I-5 and I-205 bridges from Washington State to jobs in Oregon are whiter and wealthier than the region’s population, with median incomes of $106,000, and 86 percent non-Hispanic whites.

But the IBR project has carefully constructed an alternate reality in which this car-centric freeway widening project is really something that benefits low income people and people of color.  The project’s promotional materials—which actually don’t show the project, or acknowledge its price tag, or the fact that it will charge tolls to bridge users—prominently features stock images of people of color.

Here’s what we mean by “woke-washing.”  The project’s home page featured this image . . .

. . . which is a stock photograph used by hundreds of websites, mostly those focusing on women’s health.  (Just an aside: A true health-oriented and equity focused project wouldn’t build a 12-lane wide, 5 mile long freeway guaranteed to increase air pollution and with a long history of destroying neighborhoods.)

In addition to its woke imagery, the IBR project supplements this messaging with a pseudo-scientific web-based survey which purports to show that the project is really for lower income people of color.

Selling a $5 billion freeway widening with a woke-washed fable

The IBR staff have developed a fictional “just so” story of how the freeway widening project is needed to help low income households and people of color, who’ve moved to Clark County for cheaper housing, but have to travel to jobs and other opportunities in Oregon.  The survey is grounded, not in actual scientific data, but the project’s own unscientific and biased web-based survey.

Here is IBR staff person Jake Warr, making this false claim to the January 20, 2022 Executive Steering Committee meeting:

One thing that really came out through this survey that I want to highlight is when we . . . asked how often people drive across the bridge, we found a higher percentage of folks who identified with a race or ethnicity besides white or or in addition to white/Caucasian, the non-white respondents really reported more frequently traveling across the bridge.

So that 53 percent‑that’s listed there, 53 percent‑of our of our BIPOC survey respondents reported traveling across the bridge either daily or a few times a week. That’s compared to closer to 40 percent for the white respondents.

So just something that that really kind of drives home a point that we’ve suspected. It provides further data that you, we’ve seen a trend in our region of folks of color being pushed to further areas of the region, being pushed north of the river, or seeking out more affordable housing north of the Columbia River, but still relying on services jobs etc, in Multnomah County.

And so, there’s that piece that I think this speaks to. We also suspect that related to Covid, as people were answering this question in the context this pandemic, there might be some explanation there, as we know that BIPOC individuals tend to be, disproportionately rely needing to work still in a location and not be able to work from home.

That might have contributed to this but just something that we really found was was a poignant data piece to point out.

The trouble is, this claim is easily disproved by referring to valid survey data from the Census Bureau which shows that commuters across the I-5 and I-205 bridges are actually disproportionately white, and higher income.  Low income workers, and those of color, are dramatically under-represented among bridge commuters.

A biased, unscientific survey from the IBR

The trouble with web-based surveys is they suffer from self-selection bias.  Only highly motivated people take such surveys, and the opinions, experience and demographics of these people differ substantially, and systematically, from the general population.  As a result, it’s simply invalid to make statistical claims (such as people of color are more likely to use the bridge frequently).  That’s especially true when there’s valid scientific data from the American Community Survey, which shows exactly the opposite: peak hour users (for whom the bridge is being expanded) are 86 percent non-Hispanic white and have average incomes of $106,000).

To see just how biased the unscientific IBR web-survey is, we can compare it to other surveys conducted with more valid methodologies.  The correct way to do surveys is with an random selection methodology; the IBR actually commissioned such a survey in 2020.  In its random survey of more than 900 Portland area voters, 13 percent of respondents reported never crossing the I-5 bridge over the Columbia, compared to just 1 percent in the unscientific online survey.  The random survey of voters showed only 5 percent of respondents crossed the I-5 bridge every day, compared to 19 percent in the unscientific online survey.  As a result, the unscientific online survey implies the ratio of daily users to non users is 19 to 1 (there are 19 times as many daily users as never users), while the random survey shows that there are two and a half times as many non-users as daily users of the I-5 bridge.  That means that the unscientific survey overweights the role—and opinions—of daily users relative to non users by more than an order of magnitude relative their share of the overall population of the Portland metropolitan area.

Demographic bias in the IBR unscientific web survey

A quick look at the American Community Survey, which is conducted annually by the Census Bureau, shows that the demographics of the IBR’s unscientific web-based survey are dramatically different from the metro area.

One essential for surveys is that participants should be randomly selected.  If they’re not randomly selected, there’s little guarantee that the results will be representative of the larger population. One of the sure tells of a non-random survey is that the characteristics of survey participants don’t match up well with the characteristics of the overall population of the area being surveyed.  That’s the case here.  The IBR survey systematically over-represents some groups, and systematically underrepresents others, which should cast doubt on the validity of its results.  The survey systematically over-represents white, non-Hispanic people, higher income households, and residents of Washington State, and systematically under-represents people of color, low and moderate income households, and Oregon residents.  Here are the details.

Income:  Higher incomes over-represented.  The respondents to the unscientific web-survey are much higher income than the overall population.  Some 44 percent of survey respondents had household incomes over $100,000; only 38 percent of the region’s households had incomes that high.

Race and Ethnicity:  People of color under-represented.   The respondents to the unscientific web-based survey are much more likely to be non-Hispanic white than the overall population; some 85 percent of survey respondents were non-Hispanic white compared to 72 percent of the region’s population.  People of color were 28 percent of the region’s population, but only 15 percent of survey respondents.  People of color were undercounted by almost half in this unscientific survey.

Residence:  Clark County over-represented.  The respondents to the unscientific web-based survey are disproportionately residents of Clark County.  Clark County accounts for less than 20 percent (488,000 of the region’s 2.5 million residents) but accounts for 43 percent of those taking the survey.  Clark County resident views are given more than double the weight of view of other of the region’s residents in this unscientific survey.

Age:  Young people significantly under-represented. There’s also a strong generational bias:  only 5 percent of survey respondents are under 25, compared to nearly 30 percent of the population.  And these people will be the ones who have to live with the environmental consequences of the project.

No doubt the highway agencies will point with pride to the large number of completed surveys–more than 9,000 to date.  But large numbers are irrelevant if you don’t have a random sample.  For a metropolitan area the size of Portland, you need only about 400 to 800 survey participants to come up with statistically valid results,  if you have a random sample.  If you don’t have a random sample, then even very large numbers (and IBR surveyed only about one-third of one percent of the region’s residents) just aren’t meaningful.  The underlying problem that invalidates the survey is called “Self-Selection Bias.” Because this isn’t a true random survey, and because respondents choose whether to participate, there’s no guarantee that the survey data reflect the views (and experiences) of the larger population.  Because those who are predisposed to care about this issue are likely to differ systematically from the rest of the population, the survey produces results that are biased.

Not asking the most important question:  Who wants to pay a toll?

There’s a lot more to dislike about the survey beyond its poor quality sampling strategy and biased sample.  The questions posed in the survey don’t get at the real issues raised by the freeway widening project.  The project’s financial plan shows that it won’t be built without tolls—something you’d be hard-pressed to learn from any of the “public information” work.  The last estimates prepared for the Columbia River Crossing showed I-5 tolls would be a minimum of $2.30 during off peak hours, rising to $3.25 during rush hour, with additional surcharges for those who didn’t buy transponders for their cars in advance.  The survey didn’t reveal these toll rates, or ask people whether they might prefer a smaller, less expensive bridge with lower tolls, to a larger one with these high tolls, or whether they’d really rather keep the existing bridge if it meant they could avoid tolling altogether.  Despite the fact that the survey avoided talking about tolls, many survey respondents raised the question in answering open-ended questions.

It’s rather like a taste test survey that asks people whether they’d prefer filet mignon to a hot dog, without revealing the price tag of either alternative.  For a project that claims so prominently to care about “centering equity,” failing to reveal that people might have to pay on the order of $1,600 per month to commute daily across this bridge is a monumental omission.  But it’s no accident:  the project’s “public information” campaign is designed is an intentionally misleading way to manufacture consent, not to accurately measure public attitudes.

Surveys can be a useful way to gauge public opinion, if they’re undertaken in a scientifically valid fashion.  But if you aren’t careful, you end up with a classic, garbage-in, garbage-out exercise.  That appears to be the case with survey work commissioned by the “Interstate Bridge Replacement” project, a thinly veiled marketing campaign for freeway widening funded by the Oregon and Washington transportation departments—with “communications” consultants reaping more more than $4 million for their services in the past few years.

Oregon and Washington highway builders have re-branded the failed Columbia River Crossing as a “bridge replacement” project:  It’s not.

Less than 30 percent of the cost of the nearly $5 billion project is actually for replacing the existing highway bridge, according to independent accountants.

Most of the cost is for widening the freeway and rebuilding interchanges for miles north and south of the bridge crossing, replacing the current bridge is somewhere between $500 million and one billion.

Calling $5 billion, 5-mile long freeway a “replacement bridge” is like saying if you buy a new $55,000 truck it’s a “tire replacement.” 

Nearly a decade ago, the “Columbia River Crossing—the multi-billion dollar plan to build a wider I-5 freeway between Portland and Vancouver—collapsed of its own fiscal weight, after both the Oregon and Washington Legislatures refused to pony up an estimated $450 million each (as well as signing a blank check to cover future cost overruns and revenue shortfalls). Project advocates delayed for as long as they could revealing the project’s true price tag and actually asking for the money, and when they finally did, legislators balked.

Promoters of the newly re-chrisented “Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) Program” have been assiduous in their efforts not to talk about the scale or cost of the project. In two years, they’ve yet to produce a single, new comprehensive illustration of the project—something that’s a standard fare in megaprojects.

That new name is part of the sale pitch.  Ever since attempting to breathe life back into the failed Columbia River Crossing project, the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation and their coterie of consultants have been engaged in an extensive effort to rebrand the project to make it more salable. (According to Clark County Today, over the past two years, $5.3 million—more than a quarter of the project’s $21 million spending—has been for “communications.”)

It’s no longer ever referred to as  the “Columbia River Crossing”—although the project’s expensive PR consultants failed to get that talking point to the White House, as President Biden recently referred to it by it’s obsolete moniker.  instead, it’s the far more modest “I-5 bridge replacement program”.  The project’s public materials talk mostly about the existing bridge, and as we’ve noted, almost never reveal that the total project is 5 miles long, that it contemplates widening this stretch of freeway to 12 (or more lanes), will cost upwards of $5 billion, and require minimum tolls of $5 for every round trip across the river.  Project staff are even leery of letting anyone look at computer renderings of the project.

The drawings of the Columbia River Crossing hint at just how massive this project would be.  The following animated GIF shows the design for the CRC as it crosses Hayden Island, superimposed on an aerial view of the existing freeway.  And none of what’s shown in this particular illustration includes the actual bridge structure crossing the Columbia River (which would be out of frame to the left).

The plans for Hayden Island show that much of the area would be paved over in a complex web of on- and off-ramps, flyovers, and multi-lane arterials.  Little wonder the residents of the island are strongly opposed to the project, saying:  “the massive footprint over Hayden Island .  .  . will destroy our community.”  (Hi-Noon Newsletter, January 26, 2022).

Calling it just a “replacement” is PR gimmick to conceal all these elements of the project.  But it also conceals where the real money is going:  the reality is that the “replacement” of the two existing I-5 bridges, is just a small part of the project’s total costs—less than 30 percent according to independent estimates.

The “bridge” part of the IBR is less than 30 percent of total costs

In 2012, forensic accountant Tiffany Couch undertook a detailed audit of the CRC cost estimates.  Her analysis showed that the portion of project costs attributable to the bridge structure was $796.5 million—just a shade under $800 million.  Her analysis showed these costs represented just 23 percent of the total $3.49 billion price tag for the entire project..

Replacing the existing bridge capacity might be only $500 million

Even at $800 million, this price estimate is too high to count as a “replacement” cost, because  much of the cost is associated with increasing the bridge’s capacity to 12 lanes, rather than simply replacing the existing 6 traffic lanes.  Inasmuch as the CRC plan calls for building two side-by-side bridges (each about 90 feet wide), the cost of “replacing” the existing structure with a new one is just the cost of one of these two bridges.  That means the cost of a like-for-like bridge replacement would be less than $500 million.

It also now appears that the revived IBR project will be even larger and more expensive than the CRC.  For example, it has at a minimum added in some expenses that were cut out of the final CRC design, such as the North Portland Harbor Bridge, spanning the a slough south of the Columbia River (which would add about $200 million to the project’s cost).

What this means is that, if the “IBR’ were just about replacing the I-5 Columbia River bridges, its cost would be far smaller—in all likelihood less than $1 billion.  A right-sized bridge would be much more affordable, and wouldn’t raise the strong environmental objections that are associated with the DOTs freeway widening plans.

The IBR Project is still hiding the cost

The epic failure of the Columbia River Crossing had everything to do with the project’s unwillingness to talk frankly about finances, and the same mistake is being repeated this time as well.  It’s fair to ask, why should we rely on ten-year old cost estimates in sussing out the actual cost of “replacing” the current bridges?

The reason is that, so far, after more than two years of work to revive the project, ODOT and WSDOT have yet to produce any new cost estimates.  Their “draft” financial plan, released in November 2020, is based on the old CRC budget, with some adjustments for inflation.  In the past year, none of the meetings of the “Executive Steering Group” supposedly charged overseeing the project has discussed project costs or financing.

The fact that the project hasn’t done new, ground-up cost estimates isn’t an oversight—it’s a conscious strategy, to avoid revealing the true cost and scale of the project—and subjecting themselves to the kind of scrutiny offered in the Acuity forensic analysis of the CRC budget.

It’s a bit like going to the car dealership to get a new set of radials for your fifteen-year old F150, and coming back home in a  new $50,000 pickup truck, and telling your spouse that it’s a “tire replacement” program.

It’s always been a bloated boondoggle

In less guarded moments, influential local politicians have been outspoken about the excessive costs generated by ODOT and WSDOT.   Congressman Peter DeFazio famously declared the Columbia River Crossing project to be a gold-plated monstrosity.  In the Oregonian on August 14, 2011, Representative DeFazio said:

“I kept on telling the project to keep the costs down, don’t build a gold-plated project,” a clearly frustrated DeFazio said. “How can you have a $4 billion project? They let the engineers loose, told them to solve all the region’s infrastructure problems in one fell swoop… They need to get it all straight and come up with a viable project, a viable financing plan that can withstand a vigorous review.”

(Manning, Jeff. “Columbia River Crossing could be a casualty of the federal budget crunch”, The Oregonian, August 14, 2011).

“I said, how can it cost three or four billion bucks to go across the Columbia River?  . . . The Columbia River Crossing problem was thrown out to engineers, it wasn’t overseen: they said solve all the problems in this twelve-mile corridor and they did it in a big engineering way, and not in an appropriate way.”

“Think Out Loud,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, August 18, 2011.

The irony is that if this project were just about replacing the bridge, rather than building a massive freeway, not only would the project be vastly cheaper, there’d almost surely be less public opposition to the project.  The objection isn’t to having a safe, functional bridge, its to building a giant highway that will worsen pollution and bankrupt taxpayers and commuters.

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 decarbonization of Oregon’s transportation systems.

City Observatory is pleased to publish this commentary by Adah Crandall on a proposal currently being considered to move Harriet Tubman Middle School to facilitate the $1.25 billion widening of the Interstate 5 freeway through Portland’s Rose Quarter.  Crandall’s advocacy was recently profiled in a report by Bloomberg CityLab.  Portland Public Schools (PPS) is considering an option that would close another predominantly Black school (Martin Luther King, Jr., Elementary) to provide a new site for Tubman.

Crandall gave this testimony to the Portland School Board on January 25, 2022.  A full video of her testimony is here:

Good evening board members, my name is Adah Crandall and I’m a sophomore at Grant High School.

I’m here tonight because I am extremely concerned about your proposed relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School. It’s finals week right now, and I should be studying for my algebra test tomorrow morning. But instead, here I am at a school board meeting begging you to do what is right and not displace students to accommodate the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure in the middle of a climate crisis.

In preparation for this, I spent some time looking into PPS’s bullying policy, because here’s the thing: I think the Oregon Department of Transportation is a bully, and that you all are bystanders doing nothing about it. And I don’t know what you all were taught, but what I learned in your school system is that when you see someone being picked on, you’re supposed to stand up for them.

So why is it that when ODOT’s proposed freeway expansion is literally cutting into Tubman’s backyard and threatening to displace hundreds of students, your response is to just give in and let it happen? The PPS website says bullying is “strictly prohibited and shall not be tolerated,” and to me it seems like you’re breaking your own rule. Why aren’t you modeling to students what it means to be an active ally and stand up against injustice?

As a former Tubman student, I know the pollution at Tubman is dangerous- no students should have to worry about if the air they’re breathing at recess will one day cause asthma or lung cancer. But the decision to move the school rather than fight the freeway expansion follows the same short- sighted line of thinking that started the climate crisis in the first place. Yes, you can move student’s away from the direct threat of pollution, but you cannot move them away from the life of climate disasters they’re inheriting as a result of your decision to support fueling this crisis without making ODOT even study the alternatives.

ODOT has bullied you into thinking this freeway expansion is inevitable, but it’s not. PPS could avoid all the community disruption associated with displacing Tubman and potentially King Elementary by simply forcing ODOT to consider “not building the freeway”. The project just lost a key federal approval last week, remains tied up in multiple lawsuits, and is currently $500 million short. These recent updates are a massive step forward for efforts to stop the expansion, efforts that for some reason, PPS seems to be completely ignoring.

I urge you to join in with the community groups demanding ODOT fully study the environmental impact of the Rose Quarter freeway expansion, which would include studying congestion pricing, an alternative that would reduce congestion and pollution rather than increasing it.

At the last board meeting I attended, I asked each of you to raise your hand if climate justice was important to you, and as I remember with striking clarity, everyone had their hand up. This is your chance to follow through on that promise. Don’t just raise your hands, raise your voices, and raise your standards. If you truly value climate justice, you will not settle for the displacement of students to accommodate expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure into the backyard of a middle school.

If you truly care about climate justice, you will not let ODOT get away with this and destroy my generation’s future. Tonight I urge you to stand true to the values you teach students, and dare to imagine a better world. Stand up for us.

Editor’s Note (March 29, 2022):  Portland Public Schools subsequently decided not to relocate the Harriet Tubman School to the King school location.  It is exploring other locations in Portland’s Albina neighborhood.

If you aren’t talking about our two-caste transportation system, you’re not really addressing equity.

Portland’s regional government is looking forward at trends in the transportation system and their implications for equity.  In December, City Observatory submitted its analysis of these trends for Metro’s consideration.

Local and regional leaders are increasingly promoting concerns of equity in transportation, as well they should.  But many analyses of equity leave out the most fundamental inequity in the structure of transportation:  our explicit two-caste system that privileges those who can afford and can operate cars, and systematically disadvantages everyone else:  those too young, too old, too infirm or too poor to own and operate a motor vehicle.  Those in the lower caste are condemned to lives of impaired access to the economy and society, and greater risk of death and injury when they do travel. Many of the other observed inequities in transportation flow directly from this two caste system.

If governments are serious about rectifying inequities in transportation they have to look past symptoms and superficial manifestations to underlying causes.  A careful consideration of these trends will take them in this direction.

Metro, Portland’s regional government, says it has a plan to reduce transportation greenhouse gases

But in the 8 years since adopting the plan, the agency hasn’t bothered to look at data on GHGs—which have increased 22 percent, or more than one million tons annually.

Metro’s Climate Plan is “Don’t Look Up” 

In the new movie “Don’t Look Up,” Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play two scientists who identify a planet-killing comet headed for earth.  Their warnings go largely ignored, and by the end of the movie, there’s an active anti-scientific movement, which as the comet becomes visible in the sky, tells its adherents to simply “Don’t look up.”

The movie is an allegory for our climate peril:  faced with mounting scientific evidence about the trajectory of climate change, and the increasingly evident manifestation of heat waves, storms, flooding and fires, too many of our leaders are simply looking away.

And in Portland, which prides itself as being a green leader, the regional government has, effectively been pursuing a “Don’t Look Up” climate policy.

Noble intentions, soaring rhetoric

Here’s the background.  In 2007, the State Legislature set a goal of reducing Oregon greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2050.  And in 2014, Metro, Portland’s regional government adopted what it called a “Climate Smart Strategy” to reduce greenhouse gasses.

On paper, seems good.

The Metro plan had a few policy ideas for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example by expanding transit and promoting more compact land uses, which would enable more cycling and walking.  But for the most part, it relied on expectations that federal and state regulations and car makers would figure out a way to quickly make cars non-polluting.  Recognizing—at the time, at least—that there was a lot of uncertainty in the efficacy of these policies and the evolution of technology, Metro promised that if its efforts weren’t reducing greenhouse gasses, it would revisit the plan and take even tougher measures.

Here it is, eight years later.  How is that “Climate Smart Strategy” working out?

Well, you might read through Metro planning documents, but nowhere in them will you find any data on the change in transportation-related greenhouse gases in Metro’s planning area in the years since 2014.  In essence, after adopting its plan, Metro hasn’t looked up.

But just like in the movie, scientists are looking up.  And what they see, specifically in Portland, is that the Metro strategy is failing—greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, not decreasing, as called for in Metro’s plan.

Here, the parts of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are played by real-life Boston University physicists Conor Gately, Lucy Hutyra and Ian Sue Wing.  Their research was sponsored by NASA, published by the National Academy of Science, and their database is maintained by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  What they’ve done is to create a nearly four-decade long, very high resolution map of greenhouse gas emissions from on-road transportation in the US.  They’ve mapped emissions down to a 1 kilometer (0.6 Mile) square grid for the entire nation, for each year from 1980 through 2017.  (There are more details about the project below). Their data is the best evidence we have on the trajectory of this comet.  And for Portland, the news is not good.

Here’s what their data show for the tri-county Portland metro area:

The green line on the chart is the actual amount of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties from 1990 through 2017.  The blue line shows the trajectory of emissions needed to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction goals spelled out in Metro’s 2014 climate action plan.  In 2013, the year before Metro adopted its plan, emissions were about 6 million tons.  The plan envisioned the emissions levels going down by roughly a million tons by 2017.  But instead, as the green line shows, transportation greenhouse gas emissions in the Portland area increased by nearly 1 million tons a year after 2013, to 7 million tons.

Metro’s “Climate Smart Strategy” isn’t just somehow behind schedule.  It is failing.  Emissions are increasing, not decreasing.  The comet is accelerating towards earth. So what are the leaders doing?

Not looking up

Metro’s climate plan promised to track emissions.  To be sure, Metro has published annual sustainability reports since 2014.  And they proudly mention the adoption of the Climate Smart Strategy.  But the only thing Metro tracks in these reports is greenhouse gas emissions (and other environmental effects) of its own internal business operations.  There’s absolutely no mention of overall regional trends from the transportation system Metro is charged with planning.  Neither does the 2018 Regional Transportation Plan provide a time series of data showing the trend in regional transportation greenhouse gas emissions.

Metro’s plan also promised to take additional and tougher measures if those in the Climate Smart Strategy weren’t working fast enough.  On page 1 of the 2014 strategy document, Metro committed to periodically assessing its progress and said:

If the assessment finds the region is deviating significantly from the Climate Smart Strategy performance monitoring target, then Metro will work with local, regional and state partners to consider the revision or replacement of policies, strategies and actions to ensure the region remains on track with meeting adopted targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But if you don’t track your progress, you don’t have to admit you’re failing and you don’t have to  bother with considering more serious steps to reduce greenhouse gases.  Don’t. Look. Up.  It’s a recipe for disaster, and it’s the approach Metro is taking.

The science behind the DARTE database.

The tragedy here is that we have sound scientific data that tell us what is happening.  The research, undertaken over a period of years, sponsored by NASA, gives us a very granular, long-term picture of how our climate efforts are fairing.  You can’t claim to be taking climate change seriously if you aren’t paying attention to this kind of data.

Gately, C., L.R. Hutyra, and I.S. Wing. 2019. DARTE Annual On-road CO2 Emissions on a 1-km Grid, Conterminous USA, V2, 1980-2017. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1735

Their results were featured in the New York Times in October 2019.  We alerted Metro staff to the availability and importance of this data in October 2019 (Cortright to Kloster, October 16, 2019).

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 adopted policies–especially ones that will reduce its revenue.  When it forecasts greenhouse gas emissions, assumes policies that don’t exist–especially ones that will magically make greenhouse gas emissions decline.

Revenue forecasts are “purely based on historical data” and don’t include adopted policies.  Greenhouse gas emission forecasts are based on “goals” and “wishes” and are explicitly not an extrapolation of past trends.

The inflated revenue forecasts are used to justify (and help fund) highway widening; the greenhouse gas emission forecasts are used to absolve the agency from any responsibility to reduce driving related greenhouse gas emissions.

As we’ve pointed out, the Oregon Department of Transportation keeps two sets of books when it comes to climate emissions.  It tells the public that it cares about climate and greenhouse gas emissions in its largely performative “Climate Action Plan,” but when it comes to the agency’s budget, it tells financial markets it’s counting on Oregonians burning just as much gas—and creating just as much carbon pollution—a decade from now as they do today.

ODOT’s officials have defended their revenue forecasts as being merely passive representations of current trends, unaffected and unfiltered by state policy objectives.  Somehow these actions that produce revenue are beyond either their control or responsibility.

But when it comes to the agency’s climate plan, they’ve gone out of their way to make highly speculative assumptions that all kinds of other actors—consumers, automobile manufacturers, the federal government and other state agencies—will make radically different decisions or implement entirely new policies that lead to reductions in greenhouse gases.

ODOT has a double-standard for forecasting—when it comes to forecasting climate, and especially establishing its responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions—it will make elaborate and speculative assumptions about other people doing things that will make the problem go away.  When it comes to estimating its own revenue (which it then uses to justify building new roadways and borrowing for more), it assumes that nothing will change and that it can safely ignore already adopted legal requirements to implement congestion pricing and limit greenhouse gases—both of which will reduce gas tax revenue.  It’s a deceitful, inconsistent and self-serving approach to forecasting.

ODOT Revenue Forecasts:  We assume nothing will change and ignore our own adopted laws.

Earlier, we pointed out that ODOT’s revenue forecasts are utterly at odds with claims it will reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions, as mandated by state law, and directed by Governor’s executive order.  ODOT representatives defended their forecasts in the media by saying that the agency’s forecasting approach was merely to extrapolate existing trends, and that its forecasts were in no way a reflection of its policy objectives.

Here’s ODOT spokesman Don Hamilton responding to Willamette Week.

“ODOT revenue forecasts are based purely on consumer patterns and historical data,” says ODOT spokesman Don Hamilton. “They are not based on what we want to see.”

The forecasts also don’t take into account the reductions in driving that may come with “congestion pricing” or other ODOT initiatives, Hamilton says.

“As Oregon executes many of its climate-focused programs, we expect gas sales to decline, and we will revise our gas sales forecasts to reflect those changes as they occur.”

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Dave Miller pushed the agency’s top planner, Amanda Pietz to explain the discrepancy:

Dave Miller: . . .  I want to focus on a new critique that I’m sure you’re aware of. It came about a week and a half ago from the frequent ODOT critic Joe Cortright, the economist. He put out a report digging into the agency’s estimates given to financial markets about expected gasoline tax revenues through the end of this decade. This was his summary: “What ODOT official revenue forecasts are telling us is that the agency fully expects us to be generating just as much greenhouse gasses from driving in 2030 as we are today. Indeed,” he wrote, “the agency is counting on it to pay its bills.” Amanda Pietz, how do you explain this?

Amanda Pietz: I think it goes back to the earlier statement I was making. When we do our revenue forecasts it’s often looking back at the trends then and projecting those forward without necessarily seeing some of the interventions take hold and create those changes.[Emphasis added].

Dave Miller: I’m slightly confused by that, and that jibes with what an ODOT spokesman said when there was an article about it this week in Willamette Week. But aren’t you supposed to give bond markets a projection that is as accurate as possible? If the whole point is [to say] “trust us, we’ve got revenue coming in, we can back these bonds and here’s our estimate for how the money is going to be coming in,” why don’t you factor in all the things you say you’re going to be doing so economic markets can know to trust you?

Amanda Pietz: Part of what is done when we look at things is [that] we have to rely on something very solid – a clear policy change, a solidified investment that’s been amended into our investment strategy in a way that’s very clear, it’s solid. I think what you’re seeing is an agency that’s recognized that we’re a contributor to the problem in the last year and [is] starting to make some changes and modifications. Now when those take hold and the degree to which they’re solidified [so] that we can roll them into our financial assumptions, my guess is another six months to a year before you start to see some of those. Another key example of that is DEQ has its Climate Protection program which will set limits on fuel sales that will have a big impact on that revenue forecast. That’s in draft form, not finalized. When that’s finalized, becomes implemented, and there’s clarity around what that looks like, that’s when it gets rolled into the financial assumptions. Similar things for us, too. I mentioned we’re investing over $50 million dollars in transportation electrification. We should see fuel sales drop as a result of that. Until we figure out exactly where we’re placing that, how we’re going to leverage with our private partners to put those in the right locations, [that’s when] we can factor that into our revenue forecast.[Emphasis added].

ODOT Climate Forecasts:  Wishes and speculation, including magical policies that don’t exist

When it comes to making forecasts about future automobile emissions, and whether the agency will need to do anything to curtail the growth of driving in order to achieve the state’s statutory greenhouse gas reduction goals ODOT has an entirely different approach to forecasting.  It makes heroic assumptions about things that might happen, if somebody else does them.  It pretends that policies that don’t exist will be adopted and aggressively implemented. And all of these assumptions are skewed in a very particular way, i.e. to reduce or eliminate any need for ODOT to take responsibility for cutting greenhouse gases from cars and driving in Oregon.

These assumptions are built into the State Transportation Strategy (STS), developed by ODOT to sketch out how Oregon might reduce transportation greenhouse gases in the decades ahead.  In a memo prepared for the Land Conservation and Development Commission, explaining the STS modeling, Brian Gregor, who was ODOT’s modeler, explained ODOT’s approach to estimating future greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

The members on the Core Tech Team from the Departments of Environmental Quality and Energy agreed that the STS “trend line” is a reasonable reflection of goals that California, Oregon, and other states participating in the multi-state ZEV standards wish to achieve. They caution, however, that this planning trend does not reflect recent trends in vehicle fuel economy. Substantial efforts on the part of states and the federal government will be necessary to make this planning trend a reality. [Emphasis added].

A footnote on page 30 of the LCDC report makes this point even more clearly:

It is important to note that these ‘trend lines’ represent the trend in the model results given the vehicle assumptions in the STS recommended scenario. They do not represent an extrapolation of past trend. [Emphasis added].

The contrast couldn’t be sharper:  when it comes to estimating an elevated level of future revenue, ODOT discounts anything that will reduce driving or pollution, and won’t even consider the impact of policies, like congestion pricing, which were approved by the Legislature in 2017.  But when it comes to optimistic speculation about technologies or policies that might lower future vehicle emissions—absolving ODOT of the need to act—the agency will definitely count on policies that haven’t been adopted by anyone.  It’s a clear and calculated strategy to avoid responsibility for doing anything to address climate change.

Clearly, ODOT’s current revenue forecasts are counting on the failure of the state’s climate efforts.  They’re assuring financial markets that Oregon will collection hundreds of millions of dollars in motor fuel tax revenues with which to repay bonds it will use to expand the state’s highways, encouraging and subsidizing more driving and greenhouse gas emissions.  It may seem like an arcane detail, but it’s the kind of technocratic climate arson that’s routinely practiced by state highway departments.

The plan to spend $5 billion widening the I-5 Bridge Over the Columbia River would produce 100,000 additional metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, according to the induced travel calculator

Metro’s 2020 transportation package would have cut greenhouse gases by 5,200 tons per year– 20 times less than the additional greenhouse gases created by freeway widening.

Widening freeways induces additional travel. It’s an established scientific fact:  widening urban freeways prompts more miles of travel and consequently, more greenhouse gas emissions.  The effect is so well-documented that its referred to as the “fundamental law of road congestion.”

Based on a synthesis of the latest award-winning peer-reviewed scientific research and work by scholars at the University of California, Davis‘s National Transportation Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council developed the induced travel calculator that computes the additional amount of greenhouse gases produced by an additional lane-mile of freeway capacity in each of the nation’s metro areas.

The proposed Columbia River Crossing, now re-branded as the “I-5 bridge replacement project”, contemplates a 12-lane wide, 5 mile long freeway between Portland and Vancouver, effectively doubling the size of the existing I-5 freeway and adding 30 lane miles of freeway (3 lanes in each of 2 directions for 5 miles).  Freeway advocates have claimed that the bridge might only be 10 lanes, but as public records requests revealed, the bridge structure is designed to carry twelve lanes, and in many places the proposed roadway is 14 lanes wide.

The Induced Travel Calculator shows that this increase in roadway capacity in Portland would produce an addition 155 to 233 million miles of travel annually, leading to burning an additional 11 million gallons of gas.  That in turn would translate into additional annual greenhouse gases of about 100,000 tons (at roughly 20 pounds of CO2e per gallon of gas).

How big is that amount?  Well, to put in perspective, let’s compare it to the expected greenhouse gas reductions from other possible transportation investments.  In 2020, Metro advances a multi-billion dollar transportation spending project including light rail, bus lanes, pedestrian and safety improvements and other projects.  Metro estimated that this package of investments would reduce greenhouse gases by about 5,200 metric tons per year.

State, regional and local government officials all recognize that we’re in the midst of a climate crisis.  It should be apparent to any casual observer that widening freeways takes us in the opposite direction of our stated commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.  In fact, the best scientific estimates of the emissions from added freeway capacity suggests that widening I-5 would generate 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions than would have been saved by the multi-billion dollar package of projects proposed by Metro last year.  Given the cost and difficulty of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the last thing we should be doing is making the problem worse.

Louisville charges a cheap $1 to $2 toll for people driving across the Ohio River on I-65.  

After doubling the size of the I-65 bridges from six lanes to 12, tolls slashed traffic by half, from about 130,000 cars per day to fewer than 65,000.

Kentucky and Indiana wasted a billion dollars on highway capacity that people don’t use or value.

If asked to pay for even a fraction of the cost of providing a road, half of all road users say, “No thanks, I’ll go somewhere else” or not take the trip at all.

The fact that highway engineers aren’t celebrating and copying tolling as a proven means to reduce congestion shows they actually don’t give a damn about congestion, but simply want more money to build things.

Picture this.  A major interstate freeway that connects the downtown of one of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas to its largest suburbs.  It’s a little after 5 pm on a typical weekday.  And on this 12-lane freeway there are roughly two dozen cars sprinkled across acres of concrete.

These pictures were taken by traffic cameras pointed in opposite directions on the I-65 bridges across the Ohio River at Louisville Kentucky on Wednesday, November 3 at about 5:30 pm.  Traffic engineers have a term for this amount of traffic:  They call it “Level of Service A”—meaning that there’s so little traffic on a roadway that drivers can go pretty much as fast as they want.  Highway engineers grade traffic on a scale from LOS A (free flowing almost empty) to LOS F (bumper to bumper stop and go).  Most of the time, they’re happy to have roads manage LOS “D”.

Somebody finally figured out how to reduce traffic congestion!  Usually, as we know, simply widening highways, to as many as 23 lanes as is the case with Houston’s Katy Freeway, simply generates more traffic and even longer delays and travel times.  And, with no sense of irony, highway boosters even tout the Katy Freeway as a “success story,”  despite the fact it made traffic congestion worse. In contrast, Louisville’s I-65  is an extraordinarily rare case where traffic congestion went away after a state highway department did something.

You’d think that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and the Indiana Department of Transportation would be getting a special award, and holding seminars at AASHTO to explain how to eliminate traffic congestion.  The fact that they aren’t tells you all you need to know about the real priorities of state highway departments–they really only care about building things, not about whether congestion goes away or not.

So how did they do it?  Let’s go back a few years.  In 2010, I-65 consisted of a single six-lane bridge over the Ohio River, which carried about 120,000 vehicles per day.  The two states decided this was getting too crowded (and predicted worsening delay due to ever expanding traffic volumes) and so spent about $1 billion building a second six lane bridge (the Lincoln) next to the existing Kennedy bridge.  After in opened in 2017, the two states implemented a toll to pay part of the cost of construction.  Tolls started at $2 for single crossings (if you had a transponder), but regular commuters were given a discounted toll: regular commuters pay just a bit over $1 for each crossing.  Today the toll for one-way crossings if you have a transponder (and 450,000 area vehicles do), is $2.21.  But if you cross the bridge 40 times a month (back and forth daily for 20 work days), your toll for each trip is reduced by half to $1.10.

And after the tolls went into effect, traffic on I-65 fell by half.  Here’s the average daily traffic count on I-65, according to data tabulated by the Indiana Department of Transportation.  In the years just prior to the tolling, traffic was in the 135,000 to 140,000 vehicles per day level.  But as soon as tolling went into effect, traffic dropped to barely 60,000 vehicles per day (with a very slight further decline due to Covid-19 in 2020).

The two states spent a billion dollars doubling the size of I-65, only to have half as many people use the bridge.  That money was wasted.  Nothing more clearly illustrates the utter folly of highway expansions.  As we’ve pointed out, highway engineers size roadways based on the assumption that the users will pay nothing for each trip.  Just as with Ben and Jerry’s “Free Ice Cream Day,” when you charge a zero price for your product, people will line up around the block.  But ask people to pay, and you’ll get fewer takers.

The fact that Louisville residents would rather drive miles out of their way or sit in traffic for an extra 10 or 15 minutes to travel on a “free” road, rather than spend a dollar or two for a faster, more direct trip tells you the very low value that highway users attach to these extremely expensive roadways.  In fact, they’ll only drive on them if somebody else pays for the cost the roadway.   This is also powerful evidence of what economists call induced demand:  people only taking trips because the roadway exists and someone else is paying for it.

The Louisville traffic experiment shows us that there’s one surefire fix for traffic congestion:  road pricing.  Even a very modest toll (one that asks road users to pay only a third or so, at most of the costs of the roads they’re using) will cause traffic congestion to disappear.  This traffic experiment shows the folly and waste of building additional capacity.  Kentucky and Indiana spent over $1 billion for a bridge to carry as many as 250,000 vehicles per day, and today barely a quarter of that number are using it.

If state DOTs really cared about congestion, they’d be implementing congestion pricing.  A small toll, probably less than a dollar per crossing, would be sufficient to get regular free-flow conditions on the I-65 bridge—without having to spend a billion dollars.  But the truth is, state DOTs don’t care about congestion, except as a talking point to get money to build giant projects. The next time you hear someone lamenting traffic congestion, ask them why they aren’t trying the one method that’s been shown to work.

Louisville’s I-65 bridges:  A huge under-used roadway and hundreds of millions in debt for their kids—who will also have to cope with a climate crisis.

Their financial plan kicked the can down the road, saddling future generations with the cost of paying for unneeded roads.

The two states mortgaged future federal grant money and borrowed against toll revenues, which are falling dramatically short of projections.

Louisville’s Ohio River Bridges are a monument to the epic policy, financial and generational failure that is the US highway system.  Ohio and Indiana spent more than a billion dollars on doubling an interstate highway bridge, that thanks to very modest tolls, is utilized at less one-fourth of its capacity.  Meanwhile, through a series of “creative” financial maneuvers, it passed the bill for the highway onto future generations, who, as it turns out will have to actually pay for the bridge at the same time the climate crisis hits in full force.  The almost empty freeway bridges show the folly of “asphalt socialism”—wasting vast amount of public resources on roads that their users don’t value enough to pay even a fraction of their cost.

Earlier, we wrote about one aspect of the I-65 bridge project in Louisville.  It turns out that just by charging a $1 to $2 toll, Kentucky and Indiana were able to entirely eliminate traffic congestion on I-65.  Traffic plummeted from around 130,000 vehicles per day to about 60,000.  Now, even at the rush hour, I-65 is almost empty.

And after the tolls went into effect, traffic on I-65 fell by half.  Here’s the average daily traffic count on I-65, according to data tabulated by the Indiana Department of Transportation.  In the years just prior to the tolling, traffic was in the 135,000 to 140,000 vehicles per day level.  But as soon as tolling went into effect, traffic dropped to barely 60,000 vehicles per day (with a very slight further decline due to Covid-19 in 2020).

While there’s a hopeful lesson here—one that highway engineers are studiously avoiding—that road pricing can eliminate congestion, there’s a financial horror story that should be a warning to everyone thinking about highway expansion projects.  The two states spent over a billion dollars on doubling bridge capacity in downtown Louisville, and their financial plans show how through combination of cynicism, incompetence or saddled future generations with the cost of this boondoggle.

Ostensibly, the justification for widening the bridges was the notion that traffic was already too congested and was growing rapidly.  The project’s environmental impact statement claimed that the I-65 bridges were “over capacity” in 2012, and predicted that traffic would grow from 120,000 vehicles per day to more than 180,000 by 2025, leading to hours and hours of traffic delay.

The trouble with these forecasts is that they were both simple-minded and wrong, especially given the need to pay for this project—in part—by actually charging the users for a portion of its construction cost.  Like so many state highway department predictions, this one was flat out wrong—traffic was nearly flat-lining on I-65 before the project was built.

State DOT traffic forecasts were wrong

Surely, you must be thinking, the state DOTs knew that charging a toll would reduce traffic.  Before the project was completed, Kentucky and Indiana hired consultants—CDM Smith and Steer, Gleaves, Davie—to estimate future toll revenues from the project.  CDM Smith predicted that future traffic levels on newly expanded and tolled I-65 bridges would be 92,000 vehicles per day in 2020, growing to 102,600 in 2030..  That was a dramatic over-estimate.  Actual traffic levels in 2019 (i.e. the year prior to the pandemic) were just 62,000 vehicles per day.  Whereas CDM Smith predicted that tolling would produce about a 27 percent decline in traffic from pre-tolling levels, the imposition of tolls actually led to a 50 percent decline in traffic.  CDM Smith overestimated the amount of toll-paying traffic that would cross the I-65 bridge by 50 percent.  The direction and magnitude of that error is all too common in toll traffic forecasts, and has led to defaults and bankruptcies for other tolled projects.

Creative Finance:  Sending the bills to future generations.

Tolls are only paying for a small fraction of the costs of the project.  Both states borrowed substantial sums. Kentucky borrowed deeply to pay for its share of the project, using “Garvee” bonds—essentially mortgaging future federal grant money—to the tune of $300 million in principal repayment and $138 million in interest payments.  In addition, Kentucky’s tolls are pledged to pay of both Kentucky revenue bonds of $272 million and a Federal TIFIA loan of $452 million.  The debt service for these two borrowings is back-loaded, i.e. is very low in the first few years of the project, but then steadily escalates.

This back-loading means the financial plan for the I-65 bridges project essentially sends the bill to the region’s future residents.  Essentially, Kentucky has borrowed most of the money to construction the project and arranged for a loan with a series of “balloon payments,” in later years.  Kentucky “back-loaded” the repayment of principal on both its own revenue bonds and its borrowings from the federal government’s TIFIA program.  It pays interest-only or just a token amount of the principal for these loans in the first few years, and then required payments steadily escalate in later years.  Debt-service obligations start at less than $10 million per year, and then balloon to more than $80 million annually in the early 2020s.

In theory, the escalating repayment can be met by growing toll revenues, from some combination of toll rate increases and growing traffic.  Toll rates have increased steadily at 2.5 percent per year, but as the traffic counts show, volume has flat-lined.  The artificially low repayments in the first few years of the project create the illusion that toll revenues are sufficient to cover debt service payments, but as required payments steadily escalate over the next few years, the Kentucky will find it increasingly difficult to meet its repayment obligations.

This looming mountain of debt service obligations has already prompted Kentucky to refinance part of its debt, essentially kicking the can further down the road for repayment of the cost of the I-65 bridges.  The refinancing plan essentially doubles down on earlier back-loading strategy, borrowing more money now to make these payments, and extending the period for repayment further.  Instead of paying off its “first tier revenue bonds” in 2045, they’re extending the term of the repayment by 8 years, to 2053.  And like the initial borrowing, these refunding bonds are mostly “interest-only” for the next 25 years, with nearly all of the principal being repaid after 2045.  As a result, the borrowers will pay almost as much in interest charges ($182 million over the life of the loan) as they pay in principal ($192 million).

Traffic on I-65 will never get back to pre-tolling levels

Whether toll revenues will be sufficient to repay these bonds hinges on whether you believe the latest forecast from Kentucky’s consultant, Steer & Company, prepared as part of the latest re-financing plan.  This new forecast now predicts  that total annual transactions (the number of vehicles using the project) will increase from about 30 million today to about 48 million by 2053.  What this means is that the I-65 bridges will effectively never recover to the level of traffic they had before the crossing was widened.  Currently, as noted above, the bridges are carrying about 60,000 vehicles per day.  The latest Steer forecast is that traffic will increase from that level by about 60 percent over the next three decades (48 million = 1.6 x 30 million).  This means that in 2053, the bridges will be carrying about 96,000 vehicles (which, ironically, is about the same level that the other toll consultants, CDM Smith predicted for 2020 in the projections that were originally used to justify project financing).  On the following chart, the red line is the FEIS traffic forecast for I-65, the black line is the actual level of traffic according to INDOT, and the blue line is the growth in traffic forecast by Steer & Company for the refinancing plan).

Comparing these new refinancing estimates with the rosy projections used to justify the project in the first place show the profound gap between highway boosters and reality.  The project was sold based on an environmental impact statement forecast that in the “no action” scenario (with just the single six-lane Kennedy Bridge), traffic on I-65 across the Ohio River would grow to 178,600 vehicles per day, exceeding its “capacity” by 142 percent.  This estimate implies that the capacity of the 6 lane Kennedy Bridge was 125,000 vehicles per day.  (As traffic expert Norm Marshall has shown these “over-capacity” estimates amount to forecasting the impossible, but neatly serve the interests of highway advocates).

Doubling the size of the I-65 crossing was needed, according to the project’s supplemental EIS in order to assure that the project could carry about 185,000 vehicles per day when completed:

Specifically, the combination of new bridges in the Downtown and Far East corridors would result in the Kennedy Bridge operating at 74 percent of capacity in 2025.

With a capacity of 250,000 vehicles per day (double the 6-lane Kennedy Bridge), the 74 percent of capacity implies a forecast level of travel of 185,000 vehicles per day in 2025.  Now, based on the impact of tolling, it’s doubtful that the bridges will ever carry more than a third of their designed capacity, and the much lower level of traffic on I-65 predicted for the 2050s shows that the project was a colossal blunder, wasting a billion dollars.  It’s a blunder that future Louisville area residents will be paying for—for decades to come.

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 billion, 5-mile long, 12-lane freeway I-5 bridge project is being advanced based on outdated traffic projections using 2005 data.
• ODOT is pushing freeway plans piecemeal, with no acknowledgement that they are creating new bottlenecks.
• Freeway plans fail to address climate change and don’t acknowledge that new capacity will produce additional travel and increased greenhouse gases
• I-5 bridge plans are inconsistent with adopted state, regional and city commitments to use road pricing to manage demand, which would obviate the need for expensive capacity
• ODOT and WSDOT have not produced a viable financing plan for the project, which would be the region’s most expensive, and which has a $3.4 billion financial hole.

In theory, Portland has a smart approach to regional planning.  It has a directly elected regional government, with strong planning authority over transportation and land use.  That government claims to care deeply about the climate crisis, and regularly touts the sophistication of its transportation modeling team.  And it says it’s looking at how the whole system works to make Portland a greener more just place.

But when it comes to the single largest transportation investment in the region, a proposed $5 billion 5-mile long, 12-lane wide freeway project across the Columbia River, it’s simply abdicating its responsibility and betraying its stated principles.

Next month, the Metro government is being asked to approve $36 million in additional funds for further planning of this massive freeway project.  It should say no.

This approval is one more brick in the wall of an even larger freeway building plan.  The Oregon Department of Transportation is pushing an entire series of freeway widening efforts, including the $1.2 billion Rose Quarter project, $5 billion for the mis-named “I5 Bridge Program” and billions more for widening I-205 and I-5 at the Boone Bridge in Wilsonville.

In theory, a regional planning agency would be guided by current, accurate data and scientifically based models.  It would insist on knowing how each project fitted into a larger, long-term vision of how roads and transportation system would work.  It would insist on knowing what a project will cost, how it will be paid for, and who will pay for it.  And if it has committed itself to pricing roadways, it should know how pricing will affect demand before it commits billions on capacity that may not be needed or valued.  And if it is serious about its oft-repeated commitments to tackling climate change, it should insist that its investments actually result in fewer vehicle miles traveled, and less greenhouse gases.

In practice, Portland Metro has done none of these essential things as it has considered the I-5 Bridge.

No forecasts. Most fundamentally and technocratically, ODOT has not prepared, and Metro has not reviewed or analyzed current traffic forecasts that show the actual and projected demand for the I-5 bridge. The foundation of any road project is estimates of the future level of traffic the roadway is expected to carry.  Just last week, the staff working on the bridge project admitted that after more than two years of work to revive the failed CRC, they have no new traffic forecasts, and won’t have any for at least another year.  That hasn’t stopped them from claiming that they know just how big the project should be (they say “ten lanes”) and from claiming that other alternatives won’t meet the project’s purpose and need.  (As we’ve noted before, the two DOTs may claim it’s a “ten lane” project, but they’re planning on building a structure that would easily accomodate a dozen freeway lanes).

The last traffic projections prepared for the I-5 bridge as part of the project’s environmental impact statement date back more than a decade, and are based on data from 2005.

Ruling out alternatives and deciding on the size and design of a highway project before preparing and carefully vetting traffic forecasts is the opposite of planning.

No comprehensive look:  building a badder bottleneck for billions.  As noted earlier, the I-5 bridge project is just one of a series of Portland-area freeway widenings.  Metro should be asking what the region, its environment, and its transportation system would look like with and without all these projects.  Instead, it is considering them only piecemeal.

In effect, this approach amounts to approving the creation of new bottlenecks on the freeway system that will undoubtedly trigger efforts to widen freeways yet again in the future.  The I-5 bridge project would widen I-5 from six to as many as twelve lanes from Vancouver to Victory Boulevard (the project claims its just ten lanes, but in the past it has lied about the actual physical width of the project it plans to build). ODOT is also planning to widen I-5 at the Rose Quarter to as many as ten lanes.  Once these two I-5 projects are complete, a new bottleneck will be formed between them in the three-mile long six-lane wide section of I-5 between the Fremont Bridge and Victory Boulevard, with 12 lanes feeding into six at the north, and 14 lanes (I-5 plus I-405) feeding into this stretch of freeway from the south.  ODOT will then no doubt call for the construction of further “auxiliary” lanes) to carry traffic between exits on this newly bottlenecked segment of I-5.  In essence ODOT is building very large funnels at either end of this six-lane stretch of I-5 North, which will predictably lead to further traffic congestion, more pollution, and additional demands to waste billions of dollars widening roads to accommodate this traffic.

As Metro staff noted in their comments on the I-5 Rose Quarter project, the Oregon Department of Transportation routinely lies about the fact that it is expanding freeway capacity.  It wrote of ODOT’s claim that it was not expanding I-5:

This statement is not objectively true and is potentially misleading; auxiliary lanes clearly add capacity.

Piecemeal reviews that approve segments on an ad hoc basis, and don’t consider the long-term effects of encouraging even more car traffic are the opposite of planning.

Not following through on fighting climate change.  The original CRC was conceived with no notion of the seriousness of the climate challenge.  The proponents of the new I5 bridge have steadfastly opposed incorporating climate considerations in the project’s purpose and need statement.  It’s clear from their choice of alternatives (every one includes at least ten lanes of freeway), and claims that the inclusion of sidewalks, bike paths and transit as somehow make the project “climate friendly,” that nothing has changed with this new iterations of the project.  Never mind that the authoritative Induced Travel calculator based on research from the University of California Davis, shows that expanding I-5 to 10  or 12 lanes for five miles would add 155 to 233 million miles of driving and 800,000 to 2.5 million tons of greenhouse gases.  Freeway widening would worsen the climate crisis.

Of course, these calculations don’t include the effects of congestion pricing.  Tolling I-5, which will be needed to pay for this project, would likely reduce and divert traffic (as we explain below), and ODOT’s own consultants show that tolling would reduce I-5 traffic by enough to entirely eliminate the need for widening I-5 at all.  If the project manages somehow not to be tolled (as many in Clark County want) it would tend to produce vastly more traffic and pollution, as estimated by this calculator.

At $5 billion, the proposed I-5 bridge project is the largest single spending item in the Regional Transportation Plan.  If Metro isn’t going to undertake a serious appraisal of the greenhouse gas impacts of building or not building this freeway then it doesn’t really have a climate strategy.

Metro is officially on record as supporting efforts to address climate change.  Metro has said it wants to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2035.  But so far, its efforts have yielded no decline in emissions.  And greenhouse gas emissions from transportation  in metro Portland have actually increased by 1,000 pounds per person in the past five years.  Metro has so far done nothing, and this and other freeway widening projects will make pollution worse.

At best, the I-5 bridge advocates pay lip service to climate issues, completely ignoring the effects of added road capacity on likely travel volumes and greenhouse gases, and instead making vague and unquantified claims that pedestrian and bike facilities on the bridge, plus transit improvements will somehow ameliorate the climate damage done by doubling freeway capacity.

Approving funding for a climate polluting freeway widening project, and failing to insist on developing a more climate friendly alternative way of spending $5 billion is the opposite of planning, and a betrayal of Metro’s stated climate commitments.

A failure to plan for road-pricing.  The State Legislature, ODOT, the City of Portland and Metro have all said that road pricing will be a key component of the region’s future transportation system.  Pricing can help better manage roadways, reduce peak hour traffic, lower the need for additional capacity, and provide funding for maintenance and equitable alternatives.  Metro should not approve a $5 billion freeway project without a clear idea of how the project integrates with a system of road pricing—and yet ODOT and WSDOT have done essentially nothing to integrate these two concepts.

ODOT faces a profound dilemma with regard to road pricing.  Its financial analysis counts on at least $1.4 billion in revenue from tolling the I-5 bridge.  But the project is being sized and designed as if it needs to handle 180,000 vehicles per day, based on traffic projections—outdated, using 2005 data, and built using a model that ODOT concedes can’t address the effect of tolling.

But imposing tolls will profoundly reduce traffic growth.  ODOT’s own consultants, in work completed after the CRC FEIS, have said that the proposed tolls on the I-5 bridges would reduce traffic levels on the bridge from their current level of approximately 130,000 trips per day to only 85,000.  (And this is a firm that routinely over-estimates traffic on toll roads).  Road pricing could dramatically reduce the need for expensive infrastructure.  Yet ODOT has not incorporated the traffic-reducing effects of tolling into its design or alternatives analysis.  They are treating it purely as a financial afterthought:  a way to pay for a over-sized roadway after they’ve borrowed billions of dollars to build it.  That’s exactly what Louisville did with a remarkably similar project (widening I-65 from 6 to 12 lanes across the Ohio River); there $1 tolls caused traffic to fall by almost half.

Louisville’s I-65 bridges at rush hour: $1 tolls eliminated tens of thousands of daily trips

If Metro were to demand that road pricing be implemented before squandering billions on this project, it would likely find that the region had more than adequate transportation capacity across the Columbia River. A region that says it is going to implement road pricing doesn’t commit to a multi-billion dollar freeway project based on outdated projections, and subsidize expensive freeway capacity that won’t be needed in a world with pricing. Going deeply into debt for a megaproject and failing to consider how paying for it will reduce traffic is the opposite of planning.

No financial viability.  At $5 billion or more, this will be the most expensive transportation project in this region for the next couple of decades.In theory, the project should be part of the region’s “financially constrained” regional transportation plan, but the budget documents prepared by the state DOT staffs show that they don’t know the actual cost of the project, and that there is a massive, $3.4 billion hole in the project’s budget.  Moving ahead with no clear idea how the project would be paid for is opposite of planning.

The original CRC effort foundered a decade ago because there was no stomach for its excessive costs in either Oregon or Washington.  Congressman Peter DeFazio famously declared the project to be a gold-plated monstrosity.   In the Oregonian on August 14, 2011, Representative DeFazio said:

“I kept on telling the project to keep the costs down, don’t build a gold-plated project,” a clearly frustrated DeFazio said. “How can you have a $4 billion project? They let the engineers loose, told them to solve all the region’s infrastructure problems in one fell swoop… They need to get it all straight and come up with a viable project, a viable financing plan that can withstand a vigorous review.”

(Manning, Jeff. “Columbia River Crossing could be a casualty of the federal budget crunch”, The Oregonian, August 14, 2011).

“I said, how can it cost three or four billion bucks to go across the Columbia River?  . . . The Columbia River Crossing problem was thrown out to engineers, it wasn’t overseen: they said solve all the problems in this twelve-mile corridor and they did it in a big engineering way, and not in an appropriate way.”

“Think Out Loud,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, August 18, 2011.

Ten years ago, the two state DOT’s squandered nearly $200 million on planning without first securing the needed funds for the project, and they are repeating this exact failed strategy today.  Now, in their efforts to revive the project, after two years of work, the project has not developed a definitive financial plan, and its estimates of Oregon’s needed contribution have inexplicably jumped by more than $150 million in a month.  ODOT and WSDOT are spending millions—$200 million is planned for staff and consultants before this project breaks ground—with no clear idea of how this will be paid for.

This amendment adds $71 million to the preliminary engineering (PE) phase of the IBR Program. With this change, the total available budget will change to $80 million ($45M from Oregon and $35M from Washington). The estimated PE cost to complete NEPA for the IBR program is approximately $135 million based on a completion of a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) in mid-2024. Following NEPA completion, the IBR program will develop a program delivery plan and progress with right-of-way acquisitions and final design to prepare for the start construction in late 2025. The estimated PE cost for progressing final design to start the first phase of construction is estimated at approximately $70 million. In summary, the total estimate of PE to begin the first phase of construction is estimated to be approximately $205 million. This estimate is contingent on the scope of the IBR solution, as agreed to by program partners, that will be evaluated through the SEIS along with the scope of the program’s first construction phase. Right-of-way costs and construction costs are not included in this budget estimate.

[Chris Ford, Memo to Metro TPAC, “I-5:Columbia River (Interstate) Bridge: Requested Amendment to the 2021-24 Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program.” Oregon Department of Transportation. September 24, 2021, aka ODOT/Ford Memo. Page 6. Emphasis added.)

The prospect for Build Back Better and a national infrastructure funding package is no reason to move ahead with a misguided, environmentally destructive bridge project.  Oregon and Washington will get their share of these monies whether they build this project, or whether they choose to use these funds more wisely.  A regional government that cared about the future would ask “what is the smartest possible use of $5 billion” rather than approving this project.

Cannibalizing maintenance to pay for megaprojects.  This particular project is a particularly egregious example of how state DOT’s beg for money by complaining that they don’t have enough money to fix potholes, but then use any additional revenue they can find to build massive new projects that simply increase the maintenance burden.  This project is no exception, ODOT is literally asking Metro to approve the reallocation of funds that would otherwise be used for maintenance to pay for planning the megaproject.

ODOT is reducing money for road maintenance and repair to hire consultants for this megaproject.  ODOT’s own memo makes this clear.

This project change requires adjustment to the fiscally constrained RTP. Funds from the fiscally constrained Fix-It buckets in the RTP will be reduced to allow for the $36M ODOT funds to be advanced on this project. Memo with details was sent to Metro 9/17/21 by Chris Ford. We find the analysis is still applicable with the addition of WDOT funds since RTP focuses on Oregon revenue only.

[ODOT/Ford Memo. page 12, Emphasis added.]

Diverting money from maintenance funds to pay for a megaproject is the opposite of planning.

This is a pivotal moment for Metro.  As former Metro President David Bragdon (who guided the agency through the original Columbia River Crossing) wrote in retrospect:

Leadership at ODOT frequently told me things that were not true, bluffed about things they did not know, made all sorts of misleading claims, and routinely broke promises. They continually substituted PR and lobbying gambits in place of sound engineering, planning and financial acumen, treating absolutely everything as merely a challenge of spin rather than matters of dollars or physical reality.

That history is important, because if you’re not honest about the patterns of the past, you are doomed to repeat them. Unfortunately, I understand that’s exactly what’s going on with the rebranded CRC: the same agencies, and even some of the same personalities who failed so spectacularly less than a decade ago – wasting nearly $200 million and building absolutely nothing – have inexplicably been rewarded for their failure by being given license to try the very same task, using the very same techniques of bamboozlement.

Metro has a choice: It can repeat the mistakes of the past and bow to the wishes of an entrenched highway building bureaucracy, or it can do its job, and live up to its professed values.  It can plan.  It can insist on accurate travel projections, it can demand a definitive finance plan, it can require that freeway construction be addressed comprehensively, rather than piecemeal, it can require that the vision for capacity be integrated with congestion pricing, and it can require a full financial plan before squandering more on planning this speculative project.  And above all, it can insist that the region’s next multi-billion dollar transportation project reduce greenhouse gases, rather than increase them.  Anything less would be the opposite of planning.

The Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation are advancing their $5 billion freeway widening plan based on outdated 15-year-old traffic projections. No new projections have been prepared since the 2007 estimates used in the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement,

The two state DOTs are essentially “flying blind” assuming that out-dated traffic projections provide a reasonable basis for sizing and designing and new bridge, and rejecting other alternatives.

The two agencies have spent two years and tens of millions of dollars but not done the most basic preliminary work to accurately predict future traffic levels.

The Oregon DOT has specifically violated Governor Kate Brown’s pledge that new traffic analyses would be done prior to determining the “best solution” for the I-5 bridge project.

The two agencies have no plans to publish new traffic studies until mid-to-late 2022—months after determining a final design and asking for other local sponsors to approve.

The justification for spending upwards of $5 billion on a massive expansion of the I-5 freeway between Vancouver and Portland—a project misleadingly branded as a mere “bridge replacement”—is the notion that there will be a huge increase in traffic between the two cities.  That notion is based on traffic forecasts prepared by the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation.  As with all transportation projects, estimates of how much demand there will be are key to deciding whether projects are needed and justified, for determining how they’ll be designed and what their worth, and critically, assessing their environmental impacts.

Traffic Projections for the I-5 Bridge are based on 15 year old data

When it comes to the “I-5 Bridge Replacement Project,” which has been proceeding for more than two years, there are no new traffic projections.  The latest traffic numbers the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation are from the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, published in 2011.  They predict that without the project, traffic on the I-5 bridge will increase to 184,000 vehicles per day, and produce high levels of congestion.

Columbia River Crossing Final Environmental Impact Statement , 2011, Chapter 3, page 3-30.

These numbers are the same as were presented in the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, published in 2008.  In fact, the traffic analysis for the project was completed in 2007, and is based on traffic data gathered in 2005.

.

Columbia River Crossing Draft Environmental Impact Statement , 2008, Traffic Technical Report, page 47

How, it is reasonable to ask, is it possible to plan for a $5 billion project without bothering to update the most fundamental data used to design, justify, and evaluate the environmental impacts of the project?

Traffic Projections are Central to Project Design and Environmental Impact

The basis for any major transportation investment is some sort of careful statistical analysis to project future travel volumes.  How many people might travel in a region or a corridor, and what are the various options for accommodating their travel?  The statistical models used to generate these data, should, in theory, inform the design of particular alternatives and shape the choices.  In particular, traffic forecasts are essential to evaluating the environmental effects of alternatives:  which alternative will have lower levels of pollution?

We have many concerns about the quality and biases built into the models used by state Departments of Transportation, but without a doubt, these statistical estimates are in theory, the intellectual foundation for any claims about the need for a project.  Without traffic estimates, highway engineers are simply predicating key project decisions on their personal opinions rather than demonstrated facts.  In this case, the engineers guiding the I-5 bridge project are engaged in nothing more than faith-based project planning.

For the past two years, the Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation have been trying to revive the corpse of the Columbia River Crossing, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that died in 2014.  In the process, they’ve told a series of lies, beginning with the false claim that unless they move forward with the moribund project, that they’d have to repay $140 million in federal money spent on planning the original project.  (That’s not true!).

In September, the staff of the misnamed “Interstate Bridge Replacement Program” debuted their final and definitive list of project alternatives.  Every one of them is centered on a something labeled as a ten lane bridge, with typical illustrations like this:

If the past is any guide, the agency will draw pictures of a ten-lane bridge, but then size it to accomodate 12 or 14 lanes of traffic—exactly what they did with the failed Columbia River Crossing.  In reality the project is likely to look like these renderings of the Columbia River Crossing—12- or 14- lane, five-mile long freeway.

In the process, the staff has ruled out a range of other alternatives, like improving transit, instituting pricing, improving local connections, and constructing a supplemental bridge, rather than a replacement.  The staff published a series of memos in August, 2021, claiming, based on technical work done by the original CRC process more than a decade ago,  that these alternatives “failed to meet the project’s purpose and need,” the first item of which is “growing travel demand and congestion.” Whether any of these alternatives can meet “growing travel demand” and result in lower congestion depends critically on the assumptions one makes about future levels of traffic.  Similarly, the as yet un-resolved question of how wide the bridge needs to be also hinges on these same traffic forecasts.

For two years, ODOT has disobeyed Governor Brown’s order to prepare new forecasts first

The need for updated forecasts was recognized when the project was revived in 2019.  At the time, Governor Kate Brown promised that a first order of business would be revised forecasts to shape the project.  On November 18, 2019, Brown said:

“I think what else is key is that we’re going to be doing a traffic analysis ahead of time to help us determine what’s the best solution for the I-5 Bridge Replacement Project.”

Clearly, Governor Brown envisioned that we would do a traffic study first—”ahead of time”—and allow the data to shape decision.  But that’s not what has happened.  Let’s turn the microphone over to Clark County Today, which specifically asked the managers of the bridge project the status of their traffic projections, which were originally promised  in 2019.

It is now almost two years later. Has the IBRP team conducted a new traffic analysis to determine what’s the best solution for the I-5 Bridge replacement project? Clark County Today asked for the details of any traffic analysis.

“The Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) program is currently collecting new traffic data and conducting preliminary traffic modeling that will be used to inform the evaluation of preliminary design options that will be considered to identify the IBR solution early next year,” said Frank Green, IBR assistant program administrator. “More in-depth traffic modeling is expected to be completed in mid to late 2022 as a critical component of the federal environmental review process.”

The IBRP team has no plans to release forecasts until after making design decisions

That timetable was confirmed at the December meeting of the project’s Executive Steering Committee.  The project’s schedule calls for developing a resolution defining a “locally preferred alternative” by April 2022, and securing endorsements of that solution by June 2022.

Meanwhile, ODOT and WSDOT have no plans to complete serious traffic modeling—which would address the impact of tolling on traffic levels—for two or three more years.  In its November presentation on its tolling plans, the agencies made it clear that they are putting off serious “investment grade” forecasts—like the ones made for the CRC, which showed traffic on I-5 would never recover to pre-construction levels, until 2025.

What this means in practice, is that the only traffic projections that the project has were the ones prepared for its original environmental analysis.  These were published originally in 2008, and based on 2005 base year data.  As a practical matter, ODOT and WSDOT are planning this bridge based on data that is now more than 15 years out of date.

Pushing for a decision before updating traffic forecasts is engineering malpractice, and violated NEPA

When the project managers say that they need to build a bridge that is at least 10 lanes wide, it’s based on these outdated projections, rather than current, accurate information.  This isn’t so much fact-based engineering as it is faith-based speculation.  They’ve decided the bridge needs a minimum of ten travel lanes, without first doing a traffic forecast. The I-5 Bridge Project’s Manager has made it clear for nearly a year—well in advance of any technical analyses or any new traffic information—that they’ve already decided what they’re going to do.  Clark County Today summarized a January, 2021 presentation by Greg Johnson:

During discussions at Monday’s EAG meeting, Administrator Johnson made the following statement.

“One of the things that I also tell folks, if you’re here and you think we’re going to talk about a third bridge, or we’re going to talk about not doing the Interstate Bridge, you’re in the wrong meeting.  The whether we’re gonna do this has been decided. “

Concealing or lying about traffic models is nothing new for ODOT. When it released its environmental assessment for the I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project, it entirely omitted any data on “average daily traffic”—the most basic yardstick of travel volumes, and also purposely concealed its modeling assumption that its base year, 2015 traffic volumes were based on the entirely fictional assumption that the I-5 Columbia River Crossing had already been built. As we’ve said, this is the opposite of planning.

10 reasons not to believe phony DOT claims that widening highways reduces pollution

We know that transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, and that our car dependent transportation system is the reason Americans drive so much more and consequently produce far more greenhouse gases per capita than residents of other wealthy countries.  Scientists have shown that building more and wider roads stimulates more driving, longer trips, and more decentralized land use patterns, reinforcing car dependence.

With this entire vicious cycle well-documented, it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing that a widened urban freeway would  be good for the environment, but for state DOTs and their paid apologists, it’s a frequent claim.  They’ve created trumped up projections that claim traffic and pollution will be greater if we don’t build freeways.  These are false claims, and today we take a close look at how this plays out in one egregious, if typical, project.

For years, we’ve been following the Oregon Department of Transportation’s proposed I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project.  The project would widen a mile-and-half long stretch of Interstate 5 in downtown Portland at that has recently ballooned to $1.2 billion.

A key part of the agency’s argument is that this freeway widening project—exactly unlike every other one that has ever been undertaken—will have essentially no impact on air pollution or greenhouse gases.  They make the fanciful claim in their Environmental Assessment that the not widening the freeway (the “no-build” option) will somehow produce more pollution than the eight- or ten-lane freeway their plans shown they’re really intending to build.  In this commentary we sketch ODOT’s claims, and present a 10-point rebuttal.

A long list of false environmental claims from Oregon DOT

Recently, a Portlander interested in the project contacted us, asking us to comment on ODOT’s Environmental Assessment, which makes these claims:

• Traffic operations would improve on I-5 in both the AM and PM time periods, . . .
•  Conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists would improve from increased travel route options, improved ramp terminal intersections, physical separation from motorized users, and reduced complexity of intersections.
• Overall, the Regional Travel Demand Model results did not indicate trip increases on I-5 much beyond the Project limits (i.e., no induced demand). The 5 to 14 percent trip increase on I-5 within the Project Area is expected for an auxiliary lane project intended to improve flow between entrance ramps and exit ramps and is indicative of primarily local through-traffic.
• While consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change has not been a NEPA requirement for EAs and EISs since the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) withdrew its previous guidance on April 5, 2017, ODOT included an analysis of climate change in the Project EA due to the high level of agency and stakeholder interest in these issues. As reported in Section 3.5 of the EA, the 2045 operational greenhouse gas emission total for the Build Alternative is projected to decrease by approximately 22 percent compared to the 2017 emission total due to federal, state, and local efforts to develop more stringent fuel economy standards and vehicle inspection and maintenance programs and the transition to cleaner low carbon fuels for motor vehicles. These trends are expected to continue over the life of the Build Alternative. The Build Alternative would contribute to this reduction due to higher speeds, less stop-and-go traffic, and less idling on I-5. Therefore, no mitigation is proposed.

Ten reasons not to believe Oregon DOT’s false claims

There is so much that is false and misleading about these claims about traffic, air pollution and greenhouse gases that it’s difficult to know where to begin.  We’ve written about all these phony claims at City Observatory.  Here are ten reasons why everyone should ignore ODOT’s environmental analysis of this project.

1. Traffic projections assume that a five-mile long, 12-lane wide freeway was built just north of this project in 2015.  Hidden in the Rose Quarter’s traffic forecasting is an assumption that a massive, multi-billion dollar Columbia River Crossing was built as part of the “no-build”–and finished five years ago. The project is still in limbo in 2021.  This inflates traffic and increases congestion in the Rose Quarter in the “no-build,” and makes the “build” look better than it is.

2. ODOT concealed plans that show it is widening the I-5 roadway enough to accomodate 8 or 10 lanes of traffic.  Two years after ODOT published the environmental assessment we uncovered true plans for a 160-foot roadway. But its traffic modeling assumes that the freeway is expanded only from four to six lanes.   Modeling an 8-  or 10-lane road would show much more traffic and pollution.

3. ODOT’s Rose Quarter Forecasts forecasts are completely inconsistent with the forecasts they prepared for the CRC and as part of ODOT’s own road pricing work.  Those forecasts show much lower traffic on I-5 in the RQ in the “no build” scenario.  By inflating the base case, and ignoring induced demand, the Rose Quarter forecasts cook the GHG and pollution estimates and hide the negative impacts of the project.  (For details, see the section labeled “Two sets of books”, at the end of this commentary).

4. ODOT frequently claims that “pollution will be lower in the future”—but this is entirely due to assumptions about a cleaner vehicle fleet (more electric vehicles, tougher mileage standards for remaining internal combustion cars).

“. . . operational greenhouse gas emission total for the Build Alternative is projected to decrease by approximately 22 percent compared to the 2017 emission total .  . .”

This is a classic red herring:  You get these emission reductions whether you build this project or not. It’s simply irrelevant to deciding which options to choose. And, for what it’s worth, neither electric vehicle adoption or higher fuel economy standards accomplishing as much as ODOT hoped; in fact greenhouse gas emissions from driving are up in Portland by 1,000 pounds per person

5. In response to these criticisms, ODOT routinely claims that its air quality analysis was validated by a  “peer review panel”.  The panel was a whitewash:  it wasn’t provided with any of the critiques of traffic models and air quality analysis, held no public meetings, and explicitly chose to ignore road pricing, which they admitted could greatly affect project outcomes.  Former ODOT Director Grace Crunican, who ran the review, testified that the group didn’t look at the traffic projections to see if they were reasonable or accurate, they just took them at face value. The phony traffic numbers generate phony air quality estimates.

6. There is a strong scientific consensus on induced demand, with multiple studies in the US, Europe and Japan.  Wider roads means more travel.  ODOT and other highway agencies simply ignore the science.

When pressed, professional staff ODOT and PBOT admitthis project will do nothing to reduce daily “recurring” congestion at the Rose Quarter—invalidating claims that it will produce less idling.

7. At City Observatory, we’ve developed a version of the induced travel calculator created by the University of California Davis to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the Rose Quarter project.  Its verdict:  Widening the roadway will increase emissions by adding 17.4 to 34.8 million miles of vehicle travel and 7.8 to 15.5 thousand tons of greenhouse gases per year.

8. Highway engineers love to pretend that greenhouse gases are caused primarily by cars having to idle in traffic, and they we can fight global warming by getting cars moving faster. That’s a myth:  Improving traffic flow generates more total miles of travel which overwhelms any savings from less idling.  Also:  Cars generate more GHG per mile at speeds over 50 MPH than below (something ODOT never mentions).  Wider, faster freeways mean both more vehicle miles traveled and more greenhouse gases generated per mile traveled.  This is validated scientifically by a paper published by two scholars at Portland State University.

9. Like most state DOT’s Oregon DOT uses an outdated and flawed traffic modeling approach that fails to accurately incorporate the effects of induced demand.  These static, four-step models consistently over-estimate traffic levels and congestion for no-build scenarios, and under-estimate or completely ignored the added travel induced by creating more capacity.

10. Globally, the only strategy that’s convincingly been shown to lower congestion is road pricing, which the Oregon Legislature approved for this stretch of I-5 in 2017.  Oregon DOT failed to examine road pricing as an alternative in its 2019 Environmental Assessment.  ODOT’s own consultants say pricing I-5 would obviate any need to add lanes at the Rose Quarter.

Governor Brown ordered ODOT to look at road pricing as part of its environmental review of the project in late 2019; but the agency has simply ignored her instruction.

ODOT is keeping two separate sets of books for its I-5 traffic estimates.

There’s no question that the traffic estimates created to sell the Rose Quarter project were rigged to make the “No Build” look worse.  At the same time it generated the Rose Quarter forecasts, ODOT hired another firm to estimate future traffic on this same stretch of roadway in 2027.  It came up with dramatically lower levels of I-5 traffic in the “no-build” world.

In May 2018, at the same time it was preparing I-5 forecasts for the Rose Quarter project, ODOT also contracted for modeling of I-5 traffic for the legislatively adopted congestion pricing plan. These are contained in a report from ODOT: https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Value%20Pricing%20PAC/VP_TM3-Final-InitialConceptEvaluatio n.pdf

These data include baseline estimates of traffic on Interstate 5 in the Portland metropolitan area for the year 2027. The study has baseline estimates, that project future traffic conditions in the absence of congestion pricing. This study uses an I-5 cordon line North of the project area corresponds to N. Skidmore Street, which is just two blocks from the I-5 cordon line used for the Rose Quarter projections. The following table compares the projected 2027 volumes in the congestion pricing study at this cordon line with the VISUM Rose Quarter 2015 volumes. This shows that the volumes used in the VISUM model for 2015 are 21 to 37 percent higher than the expected volumes in 2027, according to the congestion pricing baseline model.

This analysis suggests that the traffic numbers, particularly north of the Rose Quarter project area are much higher than would be expected in another arguably reasonable forecast of traffic conditions. Given the expectation of growing traffic levels in the ODOT Rose Quarter modelling, one would expect that 2027 I-5 traffic levels would be considerably higher, not lower than 2015 levels. The fact that two models, prepared for the same agency, in the same month, produce two such different pictures of traffic levels suggests that the model results are highly sensitive to the assumptions and input values used by the modelers. These key values and assumptions have generally not been provided to the public for review, making it impossible for independent, third parties to understand, replicate, and analyze the summary results presented in the Environmental Assessment.

Portland’s $60 million a year clean energy fund needs climate accountability

Any grant writer can spin a yarn that creates the illusion that a given project will have some sort of climate benefits, but if you’re actually investing real money, you should insist on a payback in the coin of the climate realm:  a measurable and significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  That standard isn’t being met, mostly because even the most basic questions aren’t being asked of projects submitted for funding by Portland’s Clean Energy Fund.

Former Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick, and long-time Chair of the Oregon Global Warming Council, Angus Duncan are demanding that Portland’s $60 million per year clean energy fund have at least minimal performance standards when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases.  A bit of background:  using the city’s initiative process, activists forwarded a ballot measure to create a gross receipts tax on larger businesses, with the proceeds dedicated to clean energy investments.  The voters approved the measure by a wide margin, and the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) now is making grants to community groups for projects to promote greater energy efficiency, and, at least in theory, reduce greenhouse gases.  But in practice there are real concerns that the dispensation of grants is advancing either climate or equity considerations. As Novick and Duncan wrote in their Op-Ed:

Already, the fund has issued grants for projects that have nothing to do with climate or equity, including $100,000 for a rooftop garden on a yoga studio. For the program’s long-term success, we should ensure that the fund supports proposals tied to specific outcomes and cost-effectiveness goals. Unfortunately, the fund’s proposed scoring criteria do not provide any such benchmarks. Indeed, they are not really focused on outcomes at all.

The underlying problem is that PCEF doesn’t have clear standards for defining what constitutes either equity, or cost-effective greenhouse gas reductions.  According to Novick and Duncan, the application process is a kind of affinity-demonstrating beauty contest, with applicants chosen chiefly for the meritorious origins of the sponsoring organization rather than the characteristics of the project.

The idea of setting up a public sector fund to advance the twin goals of promoting equity and reducing greenhouse gases has considerable merit, but if it’s going to make any difference in either area, it needs to insist on measurable results and clear accountability.  The current PCEF regulations do very little to achieve this fundamental need.  Portland’s voters, historically disadvantaged communities, and the environment all deserve better.

Stanford claims its campus will be 100 percent solar powered . . . provided you ignore cars.

A flashy news release caught our eye this week.  Stanford University is reporting that its campus will be 100 percent powered by solar energy very soon.

In the echo chamber that is social media, that claim got a lot of attention and repetition, and predictably morphed into an even more sweeping accomplishment.  Climate Solutions tweeted that Stanford would be the first major university to achieve 100 percent clean energy.

To be clear, Stanford’s press release didn’t make that claim, but any time you tout “hashtag 100 percent” anything, people tend to focus on the “100” and not on the universe to which that is applied.  When you read the fine print, it’s clear that the “100 percent” claim applies only the the campus buildings, not to how students, faculty, staff and visitor actually get to and from the campus to for education, research and entertainment.

Buildings get a lot of attention; you have to use energy to heat, light, and cool them, and run computers and other equipment, but as with the rest of America, the far bigger source of energy use and carbon emissions is not the buildings themselves, but the energy and pollution generated by traveling to and from them.  In California, cars account for 5 times as much greenhouse gas production (28 percent) as all commercial buildings (5.5 percent).

In the case of Stanford University, The “100 percent  solar” claims definitely doesn’t include the campus’s nearly 20,000 parking spaces, most of which are used by internal combustion fueled cars.   About 58 percent of those working on campus arrive by private car. And that produces vastly more carbon emissions that just building operations.

To its credit, in recent years, the university has been taking steps to build more on-campus housing, and to meet the travel demand from expansion without increasing the total number of car trips, but it’s still the case that cars and travel are the university’s leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.  So far the university’s own sustainability plan has counted mostly building-related emissions, and avoided counting what it classifies as “Scope 3” emissions associated with university travel.  They’re planning to address those emissions in the future.

While it’s technically true that the building energy may come from solar, it’s important to recognize that the buildings have no utility unless people travel to and from them on a regular basis.  The parking lots, and the cars they service are an integral–and in fact dominant–part of the university’s carbon footprint.  It’s all well and good to celebrate greater use of solar power, but before anyone makes “100 percent” or zero net carbon about any particular institution, they would do well to consider all their emissions, not just one component.

Yesterday, we explored the differences in car insurance premiums in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Today, we will take a look at homeowners insurance rates. Unlike car insurance, homeowners insurance is not required in states. Still, this insurance can be required by a mortgage lender, and it is an important action to protect one’s home. Premiums vary across the US, with location being one of the strongest determinants of price. Differences in weather, proximity to disaster-prone areas, crime rates, and density can vary home insurance rates across different metropolitan areas. We will explore these variations in insurance premiums and consider how it might affect the overall cost of living. 

Home insurance rates are important to examine right now because of the growing impact of climate change on our built environments. Differences in insurance costs among cities may become even larger in the years ahead.  The growth in wildfires and extreme weather events associated with climate change has already produced record insurance payouts. Insurance models are generally based upon historical data. They calculate the expected payout and create prices accordingly. What happens when climate change shifts trends in unpredictable ways? Just last year, disaster payouts from reinsurers, the firms that insure the insurance companies, were the fifth highest in history. Climate change prompts insurance companies, and the “re-insurers” who share these risks to reevaluate their rate-setting models. When the risk for payout increases, so does the cost of insurance. Mother Nature plays a crucial role when considering insurance rates. Nature’s volatility can significantly heighten your premiums.

Which cities have the least (and most) expensive home insurance rates?

Home insurance rates have similar variables that impact the rates across the country. The greater the likelihood for damage to the home, the more expensive the rate will be. We used Insure.com data to compile the average annual home insurance rates across 52 of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Unfortunately, Insure.com did not have any estimates for Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA. The site did not have clear methodologies on the rate, however, it was uniform throughout so we can examine the relative differences across these metro areas. Among the large metro areas, the median rate was $2118.  (Cities have somewhat higher rates than rural areas, which is why the large city median is north of the national average of $1631). 

The cities with the highest home insurance rates were Miami, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Detroit. The lowest home insurance rates were found in San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. Among large metro areas, California appears to be the cheapest state to insure your home. In fact, with Seattle, Portland, and Las Vegas all below the 25th percentile as well, the West Coast proves to be a relatively inexpensive place to insure your home. The South? Not so much. Eight Southern cities are above the 75th percentile. 

The risk of extreme weather in these regions appears to be a significant factor for these differences. Miami and New Orleans have hurricane seasons every year. In 2020, there were a record breaking 30 named hurricanes during the Atlantic hurricane season, with 11 landfalling in the United States. The risk for home damage due to the prevalence of events like this increases insurance rates. As climate change continues to disrupt the trends of the weather, we can expect home insurance rates to rise. Other regions also face their own unique risks: Oklahoma City is in a high risk zone for tornados, fires, and earthquakes. These natural disaster risks push up premiums. While there are wildfire and earthquake risks in the West, they haven’t produced dramatically higher insurance rates—yet. We will likely see changes in this over time as we continue to feel increasing impacts of climate change though. 

Insurance and the Cost of Living

Just like we did yesterday for auto insurance, we compared the BEA’s RPP for Rent with the insurance data below. What we found: a slight negative correlation for homeowners insurance. However, when looking at the graph, you can see California standing out as an outlier, bringing down the correlation. When the RPP for Rent ranges from 80 to 150, there is a clear positive association between the insurance premiums and the price parity. This trend points us to consider that there might be an increasing effect for insurance rates and housing costs.

Let’s consider two cities: Oklahoma City and Seattle. According to Insure.com, the average annual homeowners insurance rate in Oklahoma City is $6045, while Seattle’s average rate is $1214. Clearly, there is a notable difference between these two premiums. When we compared the sprawl tax to cost of living, we used estimates of rent differential as a benchmark for cost of living. The cost of housing varies the most across metropolitan areas, so this was an effective measure for comparison. The typical resident in Oklahoma City paid roughly $2,525 less in annual rent/housing costs compared to the typical large metropolitan area. In Seattle, the typical resident paid approximately $2,055 more. From our Insure.com data, the annual housing insurance premium in Oklahoma City is $3,927 above the median premium across large metro areas. Seattle, on the other hand, has an annual premium that is $904 less than the median rate. These data suggest Oklahoma City’s high homeowner’s insurance rates effectively cancel out the lower rents in the metro area. The cost of housing is heightened significantly by homeowners insurance, placing Seattle and Oklahoma City on roughly the same pedestal. Seattle’s lower cost of insurance made up for the high rents. A cost of living comparison that omits these significant variations in insurance costs probably isn’t reliable.

What’s the relationship between home values and insurance rates?  In general, we would expect that insurance premiums would be higher in cities with expensive housing, as it would be more expensive to repair or replace a home in an expensive metro than a lower priced one.  Overall, there is a positive but modest relationship between home prices and insurance rates. Generally, the more valuable a home is, the more expensive it will be to insure it. 

High homeowners premiums are likely to hike up the cost of living. However, low homeowners premiums in Western metro areas like Seattle, San Jose, and Sacramento at least partially offset higher annual housing costs. In contrast, some seemingly affordable Southern metro areas like New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Memphis could have some or all of their affordability advantage eroded by notably high insurance premiums. These areas are where insurance makes its biggest impact in the overall cost of living. 

Although homeowners insurance isn’t mandated by law like auto insurance, it is widespread and many homeowners regard it as essential, making it an important element to include in cost-of-living comparisons. Auto insurance likely plays a smaller role in the overall cost of living. Owning and insuring a car is not a requirement in all places, so the lack of need for auto insurance (and other car maintenance) could help lower the cost of living. It is difficult to fully quantify the cost of living across different areas because there is value in the external benefits of different cities. These cost of living comparisons struggle to encapture the amenities which cities can provide for their constituents. Still, insurance has the potential to play a mighty role in the cost of living. Auto and home insurance can require thousands of dollars out of consumers’ pockets each year. The impacts of climate change on our world will increase those premiums. Climate change is making a more volatile and uncertain world. As extreme weather risks intensify, the demand for insurance will as well. The role of insurance will heighten as we move into the future and it will be important to keep in mind how hefty the price tag is across the nation. The role in cost of living may not be entirely significant now, but as the world becomes more unpredictable, we could see the price to protect your belongings rise to new heights.

Note: This post has been updated to provide a link to insure.com‘s website.

Everyone loves to compare the affordability of different cities, and most of the attention gets focused on differences in housing prices and rents. Clearly, these are a major component of living costs, and they vary substantially across the nation.  But as we’ve regularly pointed out at City Observatory, transportation costs also vary widely across cities, and some places that have somewhat more costly housing also have more compact development patterns and less sprawl, and therefore enable their residents to spend less on cars and gasoline for transportation. These differences can create a significant impact on the overall cost of living across cities. We’ve computed the difference in city living costs in our Sprawl Tax report.

There’s another important component to differing living costs across the nation that we think deserves additional attention: insurance costs. Nearly all drivers and the majority of homeowners carry insurance on their cars and homes. Insurance premiums vary widely across the US, based on differences in crash rates, losses to natural disasters, and state-to-state variations in legal standards (as well as other factors). Today we’re going to start looking more closely at these variations—we’ll start with differences in car insurance costs, and tomorrow, look at home insurance.

Car insurance is a requirement for many people living in auto-dependent places. Wide sprawling metropolitan areas often require more miles to be driven for commuting. We are curious about the role that insurance plays in relation to the cost of living. When a car is required to commute to work or the store, insurance is a necessity to protect yourself and the car. The price of insurance is dependent upon one’s personal background as well as the makeup of one’s setting. Location plays a major role, whether it be state policy, natural regional differences, or the composition of the insurance pool around you. Insurance can become a vital and costly expense for Americans. The magnitude of that expense could severely influence the way we view the overall cost of living across major cities. 

Which cities have the least (and most) expensive auto insurance rates?

Using data from TheZebra.com, we compiled the average annual auto insurance premiums across the 53 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The Zebra estimated the typical premium paid by a 30 year old single male driving a Honda Accord. In the typical large US metropolitan area, the average automobile insurance premium is about $1,800 per year.  The rankings of large metros are shown below. Premiums in these large metros are higher than the overall national average auto insurance premium. In general, rural areas have generally lower rates. Insurance companies base their rates upon the perceived risk at obtaining a claim. The more at-risk the company is at receiving a claim, the higher their insurance rates will be. Cities increase the risk, as insurance companies report that claims are higher in urban areas, thus their rates increase accordingly.

The cities with the highest car insurance rates were Detroit, New Orleans, Miami, and New York. Detroit, by far the highest, had an average insurance rate of $6,280. The Motor City has annual prices approximately four times higher than the median rate for large metropolitan areas. The cities with the lowest car insurance premiums were Cincinnati, Charlotte, Virginia Beach, and Raleigh. These annual rates were all between $900 and $1200, significantly lower than the highest tier. Generally inexpensive cities (25th percentile) and generally expensive cities (75th percentile) vary by $670.

Other living cost estimates, like the sprawl tax, vary differently than auto insurance rates. The sprawl tax in particular has less extreme values, yet a wider range of variation across the middle of the data. The median sprawl tax, $1,302, is less than the median insurance rate by roughly $500. At the same time, the sprawl tax in generally inexpensive cities compared to generally expensive cities is nearly $1000, a greater difference than insurance rates. Insurance premiums in the most expensive cities are by far greater than the sprawl tax. These clear outliers make the distribution of auto insurance premiums standout compared to other living cost estimates. 

Another interesting difference can be seen by examining which cities standout across sprawl tax and car insurance. For instance, New Orleans and New York are two of the most expensive cities to insure your car. Yet, they have the lowest sprawl tax. Moreover, five of the ten most expensive cities to insure your car are all below the 25th percentile for the sprawl tax. Let’s take a closer look at the relationship between miles traveled and insurance rates. Using data from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, we compiled the annual vehicle miles traveled per household across metropolitan areas and compared it to the auto premiums. We assumed that we would see a positive relationship. The more miles you drive, the greater your risk for filing a claim. Instead, we found the opposite – auto insurance rates decreased as annual VMT per household increased.

Insurance rates were lower in the places where people drove more often. Insurance rates were higher in places where people had lower sprawl taxes. Why? Car dependence. In sprawling metropolitan areas, people need to drive themselves to get where they need to go. People are reliant on their cars for nearly all commuting travel, which in turn makes insurance a necessity. Insurance pools grow with more insurers distributing the risk of payout across more people, which consequently decreases rates. Sprawl may have a negative impact on insurance rates because of its impact on the demand for insurance. 

We believe that the structure of insurance policy is a strong contributor in the variation of rates across metro areas. State laws regulate the market for automotive insurance policies, which can be choice no-fault, a tort liability, or a combination of both. A no-fault state means that in the event of an accident, neither driver is deemed “at fault” and both drivers use their insurance to cover their own damages. As a result of this, no-fault states require personal injury protection (PIP) to cover medical costs, economic benefits, and death benefits. This additional protection on top of the ordinary liability can raise prices. Michigan is a no-fault state that also requires personal property insurance (PPI), and Detroit feels the consequences of that. In fact, 6 out of the top 10 cities for annual auto insurance rates (Detroit, Miami, New York, Tampa, Grand Rapids, and Philadelphia) are all in no-fault states. PIP requirements are likely a key player for the higher prices. Starting in July 2020, the state of Michigan readjusted their auto insurance policy to allow the insured to choose their level of PIP. This may lead to reductions in overall costs in the nation’s most expensive city for car insurance.

A city’s demographics are also important to consider when thinking about insurance rates. We have explored discrimination in automobile insurance before at City Observatory. We found that there were higher auto insurance rates in black neighborhoods, even those with safe drivers. Black drivers were found to be less likely to speed, yet they pay substantially more because of living in a predominantly Black neighborhood. A quick look at our data shows that several of the cities with the largest Black populations—Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Baltimore—face some of the highest premiums of all the 53 largest metros. Race and population demographics could help explain some of this variation in average insurance premiums across the country.

Auto Insurance and the Cost of Living

As we explained in our Sprawl Tax series, the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP) is the most comprehensive measure we have of inter-metropolitan differences in consumer prices. Variations in rents are the largest component of overall cost-of-living variations between cities. But, how does the variation in auto insurance premiums relate to the variation in housing costs? Does the cost of insuring your car significantly change the cost of living? We compared the BEA’s RPP for Rent with the insurance data below. BEA’s RPP for rent does not include the cost of insurance. Insurance is included within the RPP for services, however it does not hold significant weight on their calculations (only about 6%).  

Comparing insurance rates to BEA RPP’s for rent, we find a slightly positive relationship with auto insurance and cost of living. This trend points us to consider that there might be an increasing effect for auto insurance rates and housing costs. However, when thinking about insurance and the cost of living, it is imperative to consider the quantity of insurance. Whether or not someone insures their car is dependent upon the makeup of the city. 

For example, in New York City, auto insurance is quite expensive, but owning a car is not a necessity for living within the city. The accessibility of consistent public transportation and the walkability of the city remove the need for a car and thus auto insurance. An interesting trend we have noticed in our data is that as annual vehicle miles traveled per household increases, the insurance rate decreases. So, while insurance rates might be high in cities like New York, a car is not a vital aspect of living within the city. New York’s relatively high car insurance rates aren’t a cost burden for the large number of households that don’t own cars. This is similar to our takeaways comparing insurance to the sprawl tax. High insurance rates may be more due in part to a lesser demand to drive a car and thus a lesser demand to insure an automobile. Car dependence makes auto insurance a necessary additional cost of living. However, limited sprawl and accessible alternative modes of transportation create an environment where insurance is not required. While this may cause rates to increase, it does not imply an increase in the overall cost of living. 

The real impact on the cost of living arises when automobile insurance is a required aspect of living. Looking objectively at the rankings does not paint the picture of cost of living. We must consider the auto dependence and the sprawl tax across these metropolitan areas to attribute the cost of insurance into transportation costs. It seems simple: people who don’t drive don’t insure cars. For those who must drive, auto insurance can pose an expensive burden annually. For those who don’t, the omission of auto insurance from their expenses is a valuable amenity. It is important to consider not only how much insurance costs but where the costs are necessary.

All in all, the cost of insuring a car can create a serious dent in your paycheck depending upon where you live. If you move across Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, your rates could increase by over $1000. The variation between these cities is notable. Racism and the structure of insurance policy may be major contributors, but other factors, like density and land use policy, might help explain this variation as well. Car dependence results in car insurance dependence. When you have to drive, insurance can place a burden onto your budget. This is where the impact on cost of living appears. People can save a whole lot of money annually when they do not need to insure an automobile.

Four lamentations about a bad infrastructure bill

From the standpoint of the climate crisis, the infrastructure bill that passed the Senate is, at a minimum, a tremendous blown opportunity.  Transportation, especially private cars, are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  We have an auto-dependent, climate-destroying transportation system because we’ve massively subsidized driving and sprawl, and penalized or prohibited dense walkable urban development.  The Senate bill just repeats the epic blunder of throwing more money at road building, and even worse this time, drivers are excused from paying the costs of the bill—a triumph for asphalt socialism.

You’ve probably seen “BIB,” Michelin’s famous cartoon mascot for its tires (and tourist guides).  Coincidentally—and perhaps appropriately—BIB is the nickname of the Senate-passed bi-partisan infrastructure bill. and the animated stack of tires is an fitting mascot for the legislation.  It’s all about driving and jovially oblivious to the deep systemic problems in our approach to transportation finance.

Others, including Transportation for America, NACTO, Streetsblog, the Eno Foundation and Politico have written about the details behind the bill.  You should definitely read their analyses.  But allow us to pull out just four themes—lamentations, if you will—that explain why this triumph of bipartisanship is a disaster for safety, climate, and fiscal responsibility.

1. $200 billion for more deadly, climate killing highways.  The centerpiece of the bill is more money for roads and bridges, which in practice means wider roadways and more capacity.  The Senate Bill writes a $200 billion check for state highway builders, which is likely to fund wider roads and bridges that will generate more traffic, more pollution, more climate-destroying greenhouse gases, and more sprawl.  The National Association of City Transportation officials observes:

. . . the infrastructure bill passed today by the Senate keeps our nation on an unsafe and unsustainable path. It continues to prioritize building the infrastructure that most contributes to the U.S.’s worst-in-class safety record and extraordinarily high climate emissions: new highways. With transportation as the largest source of U.S. climate emissions, and 80% of those coming from driving, the Senate’s bill goes in the wrong direction, giving a whopping $200 billion in virtually unrestricted funding to this unsustainable mode.

Ironically the Senate passed the bill the same week the International Panel on Climate Change released its latest and most dire warning about the damage done by these greenhouse gas emissions.  The Senate Bill not only does nothing, but promises to squander vastly more resources to make the problem worse.

2. No accountability for climate, safety or good repair.  It’s a considerable exaggeration to say we have a federal “transportation policy.”  In effect, while it mouths a national interest in a safe, well-maintained and sustainable transportation system, the Senate bill just continues a system in which the federal government writes huge checks to state highway builders and . . . looks the other way.  There are no requirements with any teeth that hold states accountable for the most basic of outcomes, and the Senate bill continues this system, as Beth Osborne of Transportation for America explains.

. . . the Senate also supercharged the highway program with a historic amount while failing to provide any new accountability for making progress on repair, safety, equity, climate, or jobs access outcomes.

3. Inequitable asphalt socialism, and the cynical joke of “user pays”.  The great myth of road finance in the US is that we have a “user pays” system.  Truth is that’s never been the case, as road users have forever been subsidized, and shifted the social, environmental and health costs of the road system off onto others.  The Senate had no stomach for asking road users to pay a higher gas tax to support roads, so instead, they’ve turned the  highway “trust fund” into the trust-fund baby of the BIB, getting a huge infusion of general fund money, which will simply be added onto the national debt, with the costs ultimately being repaid, with interest, from income taxes.

An analysis by the ENO Foundation shows that the Senate bill transfers $118 billion to the highway trust fund from the general fund, bringing the total amount of the bailout of highway funds to more than $272 billion since 2008.

We know that despite Congress dumping more than $200 billion of general fund revenue into the highway portion of the fund, that car apologists will continue to make the false argument that we have a “user pays” system, and that spending money on any non-auto form of transportation is somehow stealing from drivers.  This bill completely disconnects use of the transportation system from the obligation to pay for its costs:  what we call asphalt socialism.

4. We could have done better.  House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio managed to engineer passage of a decent stab at transportation reform in the House, only to see it “gutted and stuffed” by the Senate.

The bill that passed the House earlier this year contained provisions that at least gently nudged expenditure priorities in favor of “fix-it first” policies that would put repairs ahead of expansion, would require at least an effort to consider how highway construction leads to greenhouse gas emissions, and would have held states accountable for actually improving safety (rather than just talking about it).  All that language was purged from the Senate BIB.

Politico‘s Tanya Snyder offers a succinct insider explanation of the politics of the bill from an anonymous former congressional staffer:

“It’s not that it was bipartisan; it was a least common denominator approach,” said the former aide, who worked on the transportation bills that Congress enacted in 2012 and 2015, both of which were hailed as triumphs of bipartisanship. Larger ambitions, he said, “fail to get addressed because of the insistence on staying in the very, very narrow area of bipartisan agreement and we recreate the status quo.”

So what the BIB really does is recycle and perpetuate a badly broken transportation finance system that promises to make our climate, community, health and transportation problems worse, not better.

Electric vehicles will help, but we need to do much more to reduce driving

Editor’s Note:  City Observatory is pleased to offer this guest commentary by Matthew Lewis.  Matthew is Director of Communications for California YIMBY, a pro-housing organization working to make infill housing legal and affordable in all California cities. For 20 years, he has worked on climate and energy policy and technology development at the local, regional, national, and international levels. 

The deadly heat waves, epic floods, and worsening droughts around the world are forcing a reckoning on climate change: We messed up, badly, and the earth’s rapidly destabilizing climate system is the consequence. 

There are many “mistakes” that have brought us to this moment of truth — powering our economies on coal and methane gas, cutting down rainforest to grow beef, soy, and palm oil — but one of the biggest and most intractable: Car culture, NIMBYism, and their  incumbent challenges in energy use, land use, social equity, and human health and safety. 

Cars are not only the leading source of climate pollution in the United States, they’re also the leading cause of premature death for young Americans and a disproportionate cause of negative health outcomes: air pollution and sedentary lifestyles are major contributors to American morbidity and mortality, not to mention the 2 million Americans who are permanently injured every year by car crashes.

But there’s a problem: We’ve spent 50 years tearing down our cities and remaking them for sprawling, single-family house development, entirely reliant on the automobile. The climate crisis is urgent, and we don’t have time to completely undo this mistake and re-build our cities from scratch.

So, the question becomes: How much time do we have? Can we simply swap out electric cars for gasoline vehicles, and solve the climate crisis? The answer: Unequivocally, no. There are simply too many cars, too many of them run on gasoline, and most new cars sold today still run on gasoline. 

To make matters worse, our current urban land use policies are still controlled, in most cities, by NIMBYs opposed to more housing; who defend parking as a divine right; who oppose safe street interventions that save lives and make communities more walkable; and who block efficient transit interventions, like dedicated bus lanes. 

When it comes to climate change, NIMBYism is a huge factor in exacerbating pollution from cars, but it’s also led to the point where we have no choice in the matter: By forcing workers to live far from their jobs, and by allowing the car industry to continue selling gasoline vehicles, we have foreclosed the option of achieving a climate-friendly car culture.

As of this writing, there are 280 million cars and trucks in the American fleet, and 278 million of them run on gasoline. In an average year, Americans buy around 17 million new cars. So, in a scenario where 100% of new car sales were electric in 2021, it would be 2037 before all U.S. cars and trucks are electric (assuming no growth in the size of the fleet). 

But we’re nowhere near 100 percent EV sales in 2021. Current estimates suggest the earliest date when the last gasoline car will be sold is sometime in the 2040s. In fact, the car industry is still focused on selling primarily gasoline cars, and primarily gas-guzzlers like pickup trucks and SUVs. And it’s made clear that its intention is to continue selling these climate-destroying beasts for most of the rest of this decade.  

What that means: It will be a long, long time before the U.S. vehicle fleet will be all electric. Exactly how long depends on a number of variables, but the various scenarios are not hard to imagine — and in fact, experts have run the numbers and are converging on broad agreement:

If electric cars are going to be a part of the climate solution, Americans will have to drive much less. How much less is somewhat of an open question; but the California experience is illustrative. In 2018, the California Air Resources Board did the math on fleet turnover. What they found:

California cannot meet its climate goals without curbing growth in single-occupancy vehicle activity. 

Even if the share of new car sales that are ZEVs [zero-emissions vehicles] grows nearly 10-fold from today, California would still need to reduce VMT [vehicle miles travelled] per capita 25 percent to achieve the necessary reductions for 2030.

Furthermore, strategies to curb VMT growth help address other problems that focusing exclusively on future vehicle and fuels technologies do not. For example, spending less time behind the steering wheel and more time walking or cycling home, with the family, or out with friends can improve public health by reducing chronic disease burdens and preventing early death through transport-related physical activity. 

California’s existing plans for electric vehicles aimed to have 1.5 million ZEVs on the road by 2025, and 4.2 million by 2030. As of 2021, there are 425,000 BEVs registered in the state — meaning the electrified fleet has to grow 10x in the next 9 years, with sales that exceed the best-year ever, every year. 

But even at that breakneck pace, it won’t be enough to undo the damage done by the one-two punch of the car industry’s focus on selling gas guzzlers, and California cities’ commitment to defending NIMBY housing and land use policies. 

In sum: With all the gasoline vehicles still driving around for the next 15 to 20 years, EVs won’t be able to close the gap in pollution reduction fast enough. We’re out of time.

Others have done their own calculations, with similar results; one of the more recent among these, by researchers with Carnegie Mellon University, did not mince words about the pickle we’re in:

Transportation deep decarbonization not only depends on electricity decarbonization, but also has a total travel budget, representing a maximum total vehicle travel threshold that still enables meeting a midcentury climate target. This makes encouraging ride sharing, reducing total vehicle travel, and increasing fuel economy in both human-driven and future automated vehicles increasingly important to deep decarbonization.

In other words: In order for electric vehicles to solve climate, we need people to drive less. That combination — of less driving, and vehicle electrification — is the only pathway to climate stability. 

Ironically, this problem of the need for fewer cars is entirely of the car industry’s creation. For decades, the industry has fought efforts to make cars cleaner, to reduce air and climate pollution, and to transition their product away from deadly, inefficient, polluting machines to clean, efficient mobility devices. 

If we had started the transition to clean, electric vehicles 20 years ago, it would be slightly more accurate to say we can continue our current, sprawling housing and transportation patterns and rely on fleet electrification. But the car industry has spent those 20 years pivoting to SUVs and pickup trucks as their primary product. 

What this means: Urban land use reform, affordable housing, reliable transit, and safe streets are now top-priority, must-have interventions for climate change. We have to end the era of car-powered suburban sprawl, and make it legal — and less expensive — to build housing in our urban cores, or in the central business districts of suburban areas, near jobs, transit, and services. 

Denser areas not only have dramatically lower carbon emissions from transportation than suburban and rural developments; but they also use substantially less energy per home — as much as 50% less. 

The writing is on the wall. The car industry missed its climate window for electric sprawl, and the NIMBYs forced the issue with their selfish opposition to infill housing. At this stage, if electric vehicles are to play a major role in solving the climate crisis — which they must — they have to be paired with dramatic land use reform that shortens or eliminates a substantial portion of all vehicle trips, and replaces them with transit, walking, biking, shared vehicles, and other forms of mobility. 

Only by combining a rapid deployment of electric vehicles with an equally rapid elimination of the need for most Americans to own and drive a personal vehicle in the first place can we have a shot at climate stability. 

Further reading: 

• To Save the Planet, Kill Minimum Parking Mandates, 2021
• Driving Down Emissions, Transport for America, 2020
• Decarbonizing US passenger vehicle transport under electrification and automation uncertainty has a travel budget, Environmental Research Letters, 2020
• Why housing Policy is Climate Policy, New York Times, 2019
• California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act: 2018 Progress Report, California Air Resources Board, 2018
• Moving California Forward: How Smart Growth Can Help California Meet Its 2030 Climate Target. Energy Innovation LLC, 2015
• Right Type, Right Place: Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impacts of Infill Residential Development Through 2030. Terner Center for Housing Innovation, Haas School of Business, Next 10; UC Berkeley, 2017
• Another Inconvenient Truth: To Achieve Climate Goals, California Must Remove Barriers to Sustainable Land Use. Bay Area Council Economic Institute, 2017
• Proposed Update to SB 375 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Targets – California Air Resources Board, 2017
• Carbon Footprint Planning: Quantifying Local and State Mitigation
  Opportunities for 700 California Cities – Jones, Wheeler et al , 2018
• Californians Must Drive Less, Says ARB at Historic First Joint Meeting with CTC, Streetsblog, June 29, 2018
• Cities, traffic, and CO2: A multidecadal assessment of trends, drivers, and scaling relationships, PNAS 2015

The Oregon Department of Transportation is in complete denial about climate change

Oregon DOT has drafted a so-called “Climate Action Plan” that is merely perfunctory and performative busywork.

The devastation of climate change is now blindingly manifest.  Last month, temperatures in Oregon’s capital Salem, hit 117 degrees.  The state is locked in drought, and already facing more wildfires, on top of last year’s devastating fire season.  Cities across the nation are swathed in the smoke from Western wildfires—largest among them Oregon’s Bootleg fire—and are daily witnessing orange-tinged sunsets.

Earth Observatory, July 2021.

All this is plainly due to climate change, and in Oregon, transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gases.

If there were every a time to change direction on climate, this would be it.  But plainly, the Oregon Department of Transportation is locked on cruise control, moving ahead with plans inspired by the dreams of the 1950s rather than the increasingly grim reality of the the 2050s.

ODOT’s climate denialism

While the Oregon Department of Transportation mouths the words of climate awareness, the substance of its plans make it clear that it is engaged in cynical climate denialism.  Its State Transportation Strategy (STS)—which claims to address state greenhouse gas reduction goals, never acknowledges that Oregon is failing to reduce greenhouse gases as mandated by law because of increased driving.

In Oregon, transportation, and specifically driving, is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 40 percent of statewide greenhouse gases.  And while we’ve made some progress cleaning electricity generation and reducing industrial emissions, transportation greenhouse gases are increasing, up 1,000 pounds per person annually in the Portland metropolitan area over just the last five years

To date, Oregon’s and ODOT’s plans to reduce transportation greenhouse gases have amounted to less than nothing.  According to DEQ statistics, driving related greenhouse gases are were 25 percent above 1990 levels in 2018.  Given the state’s objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 (and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050), we’re headed in exactly the wrong direction.

In the face of this epic failure to make progress, and in the wake of the most extreme weather ever recorded, ODOT is proposing to actually make the problem worse by spending billions widened Portland area freeways, and going deeply into debt to do so, as we discussed earlier.

As the Oregon Environmental Council and 20 other local environmental organizations wrote to the Oregon Transportation Commission:

Transportation-related emissions make up nearly 40% of Oregon’s total greenhouse gas emissions and continue to steadily increase. The investments that ODOT has made to address climate, while valuable, are profoundly insufficient given the scale and urgency with which we must reduce emissions to avert the worst of the grim and chaotic future we are already experiencing.

ODOT’s “climate action plan”:  Cynical, meaningless and wrong

In theory, the Oregon Department of Transportation is going to combat climate change through  is a five-year climate action plan, which is supposed to represent the agency’s response to a call from Governor Brown to take climate more seriously.  It’s a sketchy and vague grab-bag of piecemeal and largely performative actions, packaged along with some deceptive claims about transportation’s contribution to climate change.  And its policies make it clear that the agency is principally concerned with continuing to build more roads, and get ever larger budgets.

A fig leaf for business as usual

Appropriately, the plan’s signature  graphic element is a single leaf—a fig-leaf as it were— superimposed over an outline of the map of Oregon. Never has an info-graphic been more appropriate:  this document is fig-leaf covering what would be, upon any closer inspection, an obscene document.

ODOT’s climate plan has no measurable goals and no accountability

ODOT is a staffed by engineers, so you might think they’d have some actual quantitative measures of the problem they face, and the impact of the steps they’re proposing.  his a remarkable plan which contains no statement of the problem in terms of quantities of greenhouse gases emitted, no goal for their reduction (to 25 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, as mandated by law), and no evidence that individually or collectively the measures described in the plan will have any quantitative effect on greenhouse gas emissions whatsoever.  It’s merely a perfunctory checklist of actions, which once taken, will absolve ODOT of any further responsibility to worry about climate issues.  There’s simply no accountability for any reduction in greenhouse gases.

The lack of accountability is apparent in the framing of the document; there’s no acknowledgement that transportation greenhouse gas emissions have gotten worse since the development of ODOT’s first climate fig-leaf, it’s “Sustainable  Transportation Strategy” eight years ago.

Reducing GHG’s isn’t a priority:  Getting more money for ODOT is

Climate may be in the title, but the substance of the plan is really about ODOT’s 1950s era highway-building values.  It’s clear from the get-go that this strategy actually isn’t interested in reducing greenhouse gases.  The document states clearly it has three main priorities (pages 7-8):  promoting equity, building the transportation system, and assuring ODOT has enough money.  Reducing greenhouse gases didn’t even make the list.

It’s worth noting that with equity, as with climate, there are no measurable objectives.  It’s just lip service from an agency that has repeatedly pushed city destroying highways through minority neighborhoods, and which plans to atone for this damage by making the highways even wider.

Pricing is a source of revenue, not a means to manage demand or reduce climate pollution

Potentially, pricing could have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions.  Fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions actually did decrease through 2014 when gas prices were high. But ODOT has no plans to using pricing to achieve climate objectives. The plan mentions pricing, but only to pay for more roads; there’s no commitment to use pricing to reduce greenhouse gases, vehicle miles of travel or traffic congestion.  The only stated policy concern is generating enough revenue to fund ODOT construction projects,

“Pricing:  Price the transportation system appropriately to recover the full costs to maintain and operate the system.”

The plan contains no provisions to reflect price of environmental damage back to system users—ODOT wants to get paid to build more roads, but resists having it or highway users pay for the damage their emissions cause.  As we’ve noted, ODOT backed off from pricing based in part on its consultations with avowed climate change deniers it appointed to its “stakeholder” group.

Falsely claims making traffic move faster will reduce emissions

The strategy repeats a false claim that Oregon DOT can reduce emissions by making traffic move faster.  One of the plan’s action items is “System efficiency” which it defines as

“. . . improve the efficiency of the existing system to reduce congestion and vehicle emissions.”

What this really means, in practice, is that ODOT spends more money on elaborate computers, variable advisory speed signs and signboards that show estimated travel times on some highways.  None of these so called “intelligent transportation systems” have been demonstrated to measurably reduce either congestion or greenhouse gases.  Moreover, to the extent they do lower congestion, they induce additional travel demand, and the scientific literature has shown that increased travel more than wipes out any emission reductions from improved traffic flow.  This is precisely the false set of claims that ODOT conceded it made to the Legislature in 2015 when it lied about estimates of emission reductions from these “system efficiency projects.”

It’s “climate lens” is really an eye-patch, turning a blind eye to induced demand

The climate plan says a “climate lens” will be applied to the State Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) projects, but is silent on the application of any such standard to megaprojects like  the I-5 Rose Quarter project, the revived Columbia River Crossing or any of the billions in other proposed Portland area freeway widening projects.  The induced demand calculator developed by the University of California Davis from the best available science shows these kinds of freeway widening projects will produce hundreds of thousands of tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions.

The so-called “climate lens” is simply a glib PR talking point that has no impact or meaning. If you were at all serious about climate, a real climate test would have the agency put on hold all additions to state highway capacity.

The climate plan reiterates a discredited claim that greenhouse gases can be reduced by widening roads and making traffic move faster, something that’s been shown scientifically to induce more driving and pollution.

Technocratic climate denialism

Future generations, enduring the brunt of increasingly intolerable summers and extreme weather, seeing Oregon’s forests and natural beauty decimated by climate change will look back to the decisions ODOT is making now and ask how it could simply ignore this problem, ignore the demonstrated science about its causes, and then commit literally billions of dollars to make it worse, dollars that future generations will be forced to repay.

This may seem like a simple, routine technical matter.  It’s not.  Its an irrevocable commitment to burn our state, to cower in ignorance in the face of an existential challenge, and an effort to cling to an outdated ideology that created this problem.

In Miami, e-scooters pay four to 50 times as much to use the public roads as cars

If we want to encourage greener, safer travel, we should align the prices we charge with our values

Florida is home to some of the most unsafe cities to be a pedestrian or a cyclist. Miami is currently attempting to change their image as an auto-dominated city and create a more inclusive transportation network along their downtown streets. They hope to increase the safety of bikers, pedestrians, and e-scooter riders. The Miami-Dade County of Transportation and Public Works Department plans to add bollards and concrete barriers along three miles of city streets to create protected lanes for bikes and scooters. Part of their plan to pay for this new infrastructure? A daily fee on e-scooters. The tax code reads that:

“operators shall remit to the city a motorized scooter fee in an amount of $1.00 per motorized scooter per day. The motorized scooter fee shall be calculated monthly based on the number of scooters authorized by the city of the current period…. During the duration of the pilot program, this motorized scooter fee shall be designated for sidewalk/sidewalk area, and/or street improvements within pilot program area.”

At City Observatory, we examined Portland’s scooter pilot program in 2019. The implementation of e-scooters into the city had positive results. Scooters were most used during peak travel hours, consequently reducing congestion. They provided a greener solution for people to make short trips throughout the city’s downtown. The program was successful and popular, but it left us wondering about how differently the Portland Bureau of Transportation treats these micro-mobility solutions as opposed to large, gas-guzzling automobiles. In Portland, we estimated  that scooter riders were paying ten times as much in fees per mile traveled than car users pay in gas taxes. For example, if payments were based on the amount of space taken up on the streets or the pollution generated, drivers should have been paying significantly more than scooter users. 

Miami’s new pilot program is another example of this stark double standard. Once again, we focus on how much the city charges different vehicles to use its roads. Miami’s tax code charges each scooter $1 per day. How does that compare to what it charges for a car? 

Gas taxes are a key source of local and state revenue for road infrastructure. The total tax imposed in Miami-Dade County on gasoline sums to 36.6 cents per gallon. If we assume the average car gets about 25 miles per gallon, the average vehicle in Miami pays a little more than 1 cent per mile traveled. Miami residents drive 19.2 miles daily according to the Federal Highway Administration. After some quick math, our estimate for the daily price car users pay in Miami comes to roughly 25 cents. This means, on a daily basis, e-scooters pay four times more per day than cars do.

Another way to look at this is to consider the amount the city charges per mile. A case study analyzing the e-scooter program in Indianapolis provides us with a template of what micro-mobility travel could look like in a major city like Miami. The Indianapolis e-scooter program averaged 4,830 trips per day and a median number of scooters in service per day of 1,654. This gives us an estimate of 2.92 daily trips for a unique scooter. The median trip length in this program was .7 miles. If we assume that Miami would see similar daily usage, scooters paying the city’s daily dollar fee pay roughly 34.2 cents per trip and 48.9 cents per mile. As we estimated above, the average vehicle in Miami pays roughly 1 cent per mile traveled, nearly 50 times less than our e-scooter estimate. Scooters in Miami will travel significantly shorter distances than cars in the city, however, they will likely be paying at vastly higher rates for using the roads. 

The City of Miami is not making a poor decision adding infrastructure to protect bikes, scooters, and pedestrians. The experiment in Portland showcased that there is a positive impact of increasing micro-mobility accessibility. There will be rewards from restructuring a car-dominated downtown to create safe, viable options for other modes of transportation. While their mission is in good faith, the partial funding by scooter fees begs the question: why are cars paying so much less each day?

Cars impose the most negative externalities onto the roadway. They are heavier. They take up more space. They create unsafe environments for other users of the road. Yet, the 25 pound scooter which is small enough to sit on the sidewalk pays 4 times as much to use the road each day. Research performed in London finds that e-scooter rentals could replace 5 million car trips, reducing both traffic congestion and CO2 emissions. These micromobility options provide a path to a transportation system that is safer, greener, and more efficient. If this is the future we want, it is imperative that we appropriately charge the most damaging and dangerous vehicles on our roads. Our prices ought to reflect our goals and our values. The disparities between what we charge those who use cars and scooters are a double standard that transportation departments must consider. Shouldn’t cars be paying more to improve the roads and make the city a safer place?

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, long time, they’ll respond to any challenges or questions by claiming that “nothing has been decided” or that a project is still being designed, that its in its infancy, and that objections will be dealt with . . . at some point in the indefinite future.

But then, a magic moment occurs, with no notice or observable event, and they’ll suddenly proclaim that it’s too late to raise and questions or consider any changes.

That’s exactly what’s happened with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s $800 million I-5 Rose Quarter project in the past few weeks.

You’ve got concerns?  Not to worry, nothing’s been decided

As recently as last fall, ODOT’s Director of Urban Mobility, Brendan Finn was telling OPB’s Think Out Loud host Dave Miller, the project is only 15 percent designed, and that there was lots of opportunity for the community to shape the project:

Well, the project is still pretty much in its infancy, it’s only being at 15 percent design.  I don’t clearly remember the exact verbiage as far as that.  The House Bill that was passed that created the Rose Quarter project, HB 2017, did have certain parameters in it that were expected from the Legislature, and that was one of them.  That said, there is almost an amazing opportunity here to connect neighborhoods and to provide not only multi-modal options, but  community connections.  And for us, making this move right now is signaling to the community . . . especially . . . those who have left the process, that we are willing to do things differently, we are ready to change, we are ready to be deliberative about our commitment to our shared values around restorative justice.

And very publicly at that time, ODOT convened an “Historic Albina Advisory Board “(after blowing up two other efforts at community engagement) and spent several million dollars hiring a team of consultants to conduct an independent highway cover assessment.  ODOT hired a multi-million dollar team of consultants to undertake an independent analysis of the freeway covers, undertaking both a technical analysis, and seeking public opinion.  This work developed a series of alternatives that vary considerably from the proposal being designed by ODOT—devoting more space to housing  and better reconnecting the urban street grid, and moving freeway on and off ramps away from the center of project.

This process is proceeding according to the timeline ODOT announced when it appointed this new board last year.  In May, consultants presented their analysis and recommendations to the Historic Albina Advisory Board and the project’s steering committee.  Their alternatives, included two that rate much higher technically, and in community support, and which would significantly re-design the project.

Sorry, time’s up: Too late to make any changes

Now, ODOT says, it’s simply too late to think about doing anything different than what the agency first planned.

The community has been pushing for buildable covers for years, and now ODOT says, that any consideration of covers will create unacceptable further delays.  Last week, in response to support by Oregon’s two Senators and local Congressman for buildable covers, ODOT said it was basically too late to think about doing that, according to the Portland Mercury:

A spokesperson for ODOT told the Mercury that while getting the cost of the caps fully funded by federal dollars would be “a dream,” there are still other obstacles to consider when building more substantial freeway caps. In order to build caps capable of supporting five-story buildings, the caps would need larger support pillars on either side of the freeway to ensure that there is enough structural strength to support the buildings.

“That could mean further acquisitions of land in the area, potentially displacing businesses,” said April deLeon, an ODOT spokesperson.

According to deLeon, changing the design of the caps now could also add time delays. The Federal Highway Administration would need to approve the new cap design, but would be under no timeline to do so. That time delay could make the project more expensive due to the cost of inflation.

It’s also worth noting that ODOT’s own consultants have said that buildable covers would be much more economical, if only ODOT would narrow the overly wide project to just the two additional lanes it says it needs, and built shoulders comparable to other urban freeway projects.  According to ODOT, it will build stronger covers only if it gets to condemn other people’s land, not if it has to give up any of the monstrously oversized roadway it intends to built (and then to re-stripe into a ten-lane freeway).

ODOT’s reflexive claim that its too late, and too costly to even consider buildable caps shows that their claims of interest in “restorative justice” are just a sham.  What the really want to do is build a wider freeway, and they’ll engage in whatever performative theatre they think is needed to convince people they care

Kudos to OPB’s Dave Miller for asking hard questions last fall:  But what the media generally fails to do is follow the thread and insist on accountability.  At what point did the project go from “infancy” to unchangeable?  Who made that decision?  Deus ex machina is a great literary device, but it’s no way to run a government.

Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood survived the 1921 race massacre, only to be ultimately destroyed by a more unrelenting foe: Interstate highways

Black Tulsans quickly rebuilt Greenwood in the 1920s, and it flourished for decades, but was ultimately done in by freeway construction and urban renewal

Even now, Tulsa has money for more road widening, but apparently nothing for reparations.

The past week has marked the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, when hundreds of Black residents of Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood were brutally killed and the neighborhood, Greenwood, was leveled.  Recent news stories have made more Americans aware of this tragic chapter of our history than unfolded in May 1921:  Greenwood’s residents were shot and beaten, their homes and businesses burned and their neighborhood bombed.

What’s less known is that despite the best efforts of the violent racists, they didn’t kill Greenwood.  In fact, the neighborhood’s Black residents returned and rebuilt, in less than five years.  The rapid rebuilding, in spite of the obstacles put in its place by the City of Tulsa, and continued racial discrimination grew praise for the neighborhood’s  resilience.  In 1926, W.E.B. Dubois wrote “Black Tulsa is a happy city,“ saying:

Five little years ago, fire and blood and robbery leveled it to the ground. Scars are there, but the city is impudent and noisy. It believes in itself. Thank God for the grit of Black Tulsa.”

Greenwood’s heyday stretched into the 1950s, and even its moniker–The Black Wall Street–dates from this period, and not before the massacre.

What finally killed Greenwood wasn’t an angry racist mob:  it was the federally funded Interstate highway system.  Coupled with urban renewal, highways built through North Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood in the late 1960’s did what the Klan and white racists couldn’t do:  demolish the and depopulate the place.  That’s the key conclusion of a newly published book by Carlos Moreno, which chronicles the neighborhood’s destruction, re-birth and ultimate demise at the hands of the highway builders.  NBC News interviewed Moreno, and reported:

In his new book set to be released next week, “The Victory of Greenwood,” Moreno explores how the neighborhood had a second renaissance led by Black Tulsans after the massacre, rebuilding even bigger than before. It was not the bloodshed that eventually destroyed most of Greenwood, however; rather, it was this, he said, pointing to the spaghetti of interchanges to the south and the expressway that stretches north.

In an essay at Next City, Moreno explains:

What often gets erased from Greenwood’s history is its 45 years of prosperity after the massacre and the events that led to Greenwood’s second destruction: The Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1965 and 1968. As early as 1957, Tulsa’s Comprehensive Plan included creating a ring road (locally dubbed the Inner-Dispersal Loop, or IDL); a tangle of four highways encircling the downtown area. The north (I-244) and east (U.S. 75) sections of the IDL were designed to replace the dense, diverse, mixed-use, mixed-income, pedestrian, and transit-oriented Greenwood and Kendall-Whittier neighborhoods.

As in so many other US cities, the construction of freeways was used to demolish, divide and isolate communities of color.  President Biden acknowledged the federal government’s role in Greenwood’s decline in his proclamation of a Day of Remembrance:

And in later decades, Federal investment, including Federal highway construction, tore down and cut off parts of the community. The attack on Black families and Black wealth in Greenwood persisted across generations.

At a community conversation sponsored by Tulsa Urbanists, Moreno summarized his research on the role of the 1921 race massacre and later highway building and urban renewal efforts in destroying Greenwood:

Greenwood looks the way it does today, not because of the massacre.  It came back. And there’s a video footage of that. But North Tulsa/Greenwood look the way it does today because of the federal highway project, and because of urban renewal . . .

And Tulsa continues to widen highways even as it refuses to discuss reparations for the destruction of Greenwood.  Again, Moreno:

Somehow it’s okay for Tulsa to pay $36 million to repair one mile of road between 81st and 91st on Yale in South Tulsa, like that’s okay. We have no problems doing that. We just passed a road widening bill and every single citizen of Tulsa is paying a part of that $36 million. But somehow reparations for Greenwood is a non starter . . .

A hat tip to Next City for publishing Carlos Moreno’s synopsis of his book and Graham Lee Brewer of NBC News his reporting of how the highway’s wounds still trouble Greenwood to this day.

It’s hard to imagine anything more hateful and horrific than the bloody attack on Greenwood in May, 1921.  In the past century, that kind of violent overt racism has given way to a more subtle, more pernicious and more devastating  kind of systemic or institutional racism, in the form of highway construction.

Single-family zoning, a policy that bans apartments, is widespread in Los Angeles County. The median city bans apartments on 80% of its land for housing.

Cities with more widespread single-family zoning have higher median incomes, more expensive housing, and higher rates of homeownership.

Single-family zoning blocks renter households and low- and moderate-income households from accessing affordable housing in affluent, high-opportunity cities.

Editor’s Note:  City Observatory is pleased to publish this guest commentary by Anthony Dedousis of Abundant Housing LA.

For over a century, single-family zoning has defined the landscape of American cities. Single-family zoning, which prohibits the construction of apartments, including modest townhouses and duplexes, essentially mandates single-family detached houses as the only legal housing option. While single-family zoning predominates in suburbs, it is surprisingly common even in large cities, where apartments are often banned on over 75% of the land zoned for housing.

When a city limits housing types, it limits who can live in that city. Single-family homes are more expensive than apartments; limiting the housing stock to standalone homes thus raises the cost of living. Single-family zoning fits into a constellation of land use restrictions, including minimum lot sizes and on-site parking requirements, which raise housing costs and create barriers based on income and race. 

Here in California, efforts to reform exclusionary zoning and promote denser housing have met with fierce opposition from wealthy homeowners and anti-gentrification activists. Even modest reform proposals like Senate Bill 9, which would legalize duplexes, have attracted hostility from similar corners. As policy and research director at Abundant Housing LA, a “Yes In My Back Yard” organization that advocates for more housing, I sought to better understand the interplay between zoning, income, and race in the Los Angeles area. The outstanding examination of single-family zoning in the Bay Area by the UC Berkeley Othering and Belonging Institute inspired my methodology and interest in this topic.

By analyzing zoning data from the Southern California Association of Governments and demographic data from the American Community Survey, I determined how widespread single-family zoning is in each of L.A. County’s 88 cities. I found that cities with more pervasive single-family zoning tend to have higher median household incomes, higher median home values, higher homeownership rates, and are often more racially segregated.

This two-part series will dive deep into the connection between these variables: Part 1 explores income, housing costs, and homeownership, while Part 2 will focus on race and segregation.

Single-Family Zoning, Income, and Housing Costs

Apartment bans are widespread in L.A. County; the median city zones over 80% of the land for housing as single-family. Even in the City of Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city, apartments are banned on 80% of the residentially-zoned land. 

Cities with widespread apartment bans are often high-income enclaves, like Calabasas in the western San Fernando Valley, Palos Verdes Estates in the South Bay, and La Canada Flintridge in the San Gabriel Valley. However, single-family zoning is common even in some lower-income cities, like Compton, South Gate, and Lancaster.

Some pairs of neighboring cities hint at a link between single-family zoning and cities’ socioeconomic makeup. In Lawndale, a lower-income city in the South Bay with a Latino majority, just 8% of the land for housing is zoned single-family. Its neighbor, Torrance, bans apartments on 80% of the land zoned for housing. Torrance’s median household income is $34,000 higher than Lawndale’s, and just 17% of the city’s population is Latino. Other city pairs, like Claremont/Pomona and Cerritos/Hawaiian Gardens, have similar dynamics.

To explore this link, I grouped cities into five buckets, based on their prevalence of single-family zoning:

• 0-50% of residential land zoned single-family (13 cities)
• 50-70% of residential land zoned single-family (11 cities)
• 70-80% of residential land zoned single-family (16 cities)
• 80-90% of residential land zoned single-family (23 cities)
• 90+% of residential land zoned single-family (23 cities)

For those who want more information about individual cities, a here is a spreadsheet showing which zoning bucket each city falls into, as well as other key statistics.

There’s a clear link between more single-family zoning and higher household incomes. In cities with the most single-family zoning, median incomes are more than twice as high as in cities with the least single-family zoning.

Cities with more single-family zoning also tend to have more expensive homes.

The median home value in the most restrictive cities is nearly $700,000, 63% higher than in the least restrictive cities.

Cities with more single-family zoning also have much higher rates of homeownership, especially in very restrictive cities. This stands to reason: apartment-dwellers tend to be renters, so a widespread ban on apartments acts as a backdoor ban on renter households.

Next, I looked at the relationship between single-family zoning and income for individual cities. Here, it’s important to remember that many suburbs were incorporated explicitly to maintain income and racial barriers; for example, suburban Lakewood incorporated in the mid-1950s to avoid annexation by larger, more urban Long Beach. It’s also worth noting that the City of Los Angeles is by far the largest city in L.A. County by population and area, and that zoning, income, and housing costs vary hugely between the city’s neighborhoods.

With these caveats aside, we can see that nearly every city with a high median household income also has a high prevalence of single-family zoning. There are almost no cities with high incomes and low single-family zoning prevalence, though 20 cities have both high single-family zoning (above 75%) and below-average median household incomes.

Similar patterns emerge when we compare single-family to median home values and to homeownership rates.

Taken together, we can see that cities with wealthier populations, more expensive homes, and higher rates of homeownership are likelier to have widespread apartment bans. Single-family zoning thus acts as a barrier preventing renter households and low- and moderate-income households from accessing affordable housing in affluent, high-opportunity cities, a point that the Berkeley team made convincingly in its Bay Area analysis.

Analyzing housing policy, income, wealth, and exclusion in cities also requires us to analyze race and segregation. In Part 2, I will dig into the relationship between cities’ zoning, racial composition, and prevalence of segregation.

Single-family zoning, a policy that bans apartments, is widespread in Los Angeles County. The median city bans apartments on 80% of its land for housing.

Cities with more widespread single-family zoning have higher white and Asian population shares, and lower Black and Latino population shares.

Cities with more widespread single-family zoning are more segregated relative to Los Angeles County as a whole.

Single-family zoning acts as a significant barrier to Black and Latino Americans accessing affordable housing in affluent, high-opportunity cities.

Editor’s Note:  City Observatory is pleased to publish this guest commentary by Anthony Dedousis of Abundant Housing LA.

In Part 1 of this series, I examined single-family zoning in the cities of Los Angeles County, and found that cities with more restrictive zoning tend to have higher median incomes, housing costs, and homeownership rates. In Part 2, I dive into the link between zoning and cities’ racial composition, and found that cities with more pervasive single-family zoning tend to have lower Black and Latino population shares, and are more racially segregated relative to Los Angeles County as a whole.

Sadly, this was not a surprising finding: in the United States, income and race are closely linked, and racial discrimination helps to explain much of the wealth gap between white and nonwhite Americans. Also, in many cities, single-family zoning was often introduced as a way to maintain race-based barriers to housing opportunities without violating civil rights laws.

In 1916, Berkeley, California became the first American city to implement single-family zoning; one motivating factor was a desire to exclude Black-owned businesses and families from a white neighborhood. After a 1917 Supreme Court case overturned local laws forbidding Black Americans from purchasing homes in white neighborhoods, many cities used exclusionary zoning as a way around the ruling. 

Even after redlining and restrictive covenants were banned in the 1960s, single-family zoning offered an ostensibly race-neutral way to maintain patterns of segregation into the present. Studies have linked more restrictive zoning to lower Black and Latino population shares in Boston-area neighborhoods and in New York’s suburbs. A Berkeley analysis of Bay Area zoning found that cities with more pervasive single-family zoning were likelier to have a higher white population share, higher median incomes, more expensive homes, better access to top schools, and superior access to economic opportunity.

Present-day L.A. County is both incredibly diverse and also highly segregated. While the county overall is 48% Latino, 26% white, 14% Asian, and 8% Black, the racial composition of individual cities varies dramatically. Cities with more widespread single-family zoning tend to be more white, more Asian, less Latino, and less Black. Cities with the least single-family zoning tend to be majority-Latino.

To explore further, I calculated a “Segregation Index” score, which compares each city’s racial composition to the county’s overall demographics. (This is similar to the Divergence Index used as the UC Berkeley team’s preferred metric of segregation, scaled so that 100 would represent the most segregated city in the county.) 

In Los Angeles County, cities with higher Segregation Index scores tend to have larger white and Asian populations and smaller Latino and Black communities, relative to the county average. High-income cities in the South Bay and western San Fernando Valley, as well as Beverly Hills, Glendale, and Burbank, have high Segregation Index scores and high prevalence of single-family zoning.

Segregation index by city (100 = most segregated)

Again, grouping cities into five buckets, based on the prevalence of single-family zoning, shows that cities with more widespread single-family zoning tend to have higher Segregation Index scores. Cities with the most restrictive zoning have Segregation Index scores that are nearly ten times higher than cities with the least restrictive zoning.

Additionally, while not every city with heavy single-family zoning is highly segregated, the most segregated cities generally have widespread single-family zoning.

As with income, this shows how single-family zoning can create or maintain patterns of ethnic exclusion. Single-family homes are more expensive to buy or rent than apartments, and given America’s significant racial income and wealth gap, regulations that mandate more expensive types of housing in a city effectively make that city less affordable to Black and Latino Americans. Barriers to apartment production therefore block many Black and Latino Americans from moving to higher-income areas that offer upward economic mobility, and reinforce the concentration of lower-income families in low-opportunity neighborhoods.

Single-family zoning has a heavy social and economic cost: it makes it harder for families with low or moderate incomes, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, to move to prosperous cities with good schools and jobs. And by raising the cost of housing, it excludes these households from homeownership opportunities. This is profoundly unfair and unnecessary; simply legalizing apartments in these affluent cities would do much to create more affordable housing and homeownership opportunities for people of all backgrounds.

Building a society where opportunity and prosperity are widely enjoyed, regardless of one’s income, skin color, or place of birth, requires us to end single-family zoning. Ending single-family zoning does not mean banning single-family homes. It would simply make single-family houses one of several types of housing that are permissible. Single-family houses would continue to exist alongside duplexes, bungalow courts, and larger apartment buildings, as they already do in neighborhoods throughout California.

Fortunately, a growing number of cities are embracing zoning reform. Minneapolis and Portland were first to legalize small apartment buildings citywide. In 2019, California legalized accessory dwelling units and has seen strong ADU production as a result. Sacramento recently voted to allow up to four homes on any residential parcel, and Berkeley is poised to do the same. Even Santa Monica, no stranger to NIMBY politics, may allow modestly higher housing density in single-family zoned areas. 

Legalizing apartments will make these cities more affordable and welcoming to people of all walks of life. It’s time for every city across America to do the same.

If OregonDOT is serious about “restorative justice” it should mitigate  highway damage by building housing

Around the country, states are subsidizing affordable housing to mitigate the damage done by highway projects

Mitigation is part of NEPA requirements and complying with federal Environmental Justice policy

The construction of urban highways has devastating effects on nearby neighborhoods.  Not only has building highways directly led to housing demolitions to provide space for roadways, the surge of traffic typically undermines the desirability of nearby homes and neighborhoods, leading to the depreciation of home values, the decline of neighborhood economic health, and population out-migration.  That story has been told numerous times across the US; we’ve detailed how the Oregon Department of Transportation’s decisions to build three huge highway projects in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s decimated Portland’s Albina neighborhood.  This predominantly Black neighborhood lost two-thirds of its population over the course of a little more than two decades. At the time, no one gave much thought to the loss of hundreds or thousands of housing units, or the effect on these neighborhoods.  But increasingly, state highway agencies are looking to mitigate the negative effect of current and past highway construction by subsidizing housing in affected neighborhoods.  Here are three examples from around the country.

The Oregon Department of Transportation claims that it is interested in “restorative justice” for the Albina community, which has identified housing as one of the keys to building wealth and restoring the neighborhood.  And ODOT’s project illustrations show how hundreds of housing units might be built near the project–but these are just vaporaware, as ODOT hasn’t committed to spending a dime of its money to making that happen, to replacing the homes it demolished over the decades.  Based on the past and current experience of other states, there’s no reason that they can’t treat investments in housing as mitigation, just as ODOT routinely spends a portion of its highway budget on restoring wildlife habitat, creating new wetlands, or even replacing jail cells.  A real restorative justice commitment would make up for the damage done, as these examples show.

Lexington Kentucky:  A community land trust funded from highway funds

For decades, Kentucky’s highway department had been planning a freeway expansion through Davis Bottom, an historically African-American neighborhood.  The threat of freeway construction helped trigger the decline of the neighborhood.  When the road was finally built a little more than a decade ago, the state highway agency committed to restoring the damage done to the area by investing in housing.  As part of the Newtown Pike Extension project, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet acquired 25 acres of land and provided funding to establish a community land trust for the construction of up to 100 homes.

In 2008, the Federal Highway Administration gave the project an award for this project, saying:

The Davistown project is the first CLT ever created with FHWA Highway Trust Funds. Eighty percent of the project, including the acquisition of CLT land and the redevelopment of the neighborhood, will be funded with these FHWA funds.

The FHWA Environmental Justice guide highlights the Lexington CLT as as a “best practice.”

Houston, Texas:  $27 million to build affordable housing to mitigate interstate freeway widening

Houston’s I-45 “North Houston Highway Improvement Project” would, like the I-5 Rose Quarter project, widen a freeway through an urban neighborhood.  The Texas Department of Transportation, as part of the project’s environmental impact review process has dedicated $27 million to build or improve affordable housing in neighborhoods affected by the freeway.

Reno Nevada, State DOT providing land and money to cities and counties for affordable housing

Nevada DOT committed to using highway funds to pay for housing to mitigate effects of freeway expansion in Reno at the junction of I-80 and US 395.

NDOT will provide funds or land already owned by NDOT to others (Cities of Reno or Sparks, Washoe County) to build affordable replacement housing for non-Reno Housing Authority displacements. Those displaced by this project who wish to remain in the area will be given priority access to the replacement housing. After those needs have been addressed, the affordable housing will then be made available to those who qualify for affordable housing but were not displaced by the project. Residents will be considered eligible for this replacement affordable housing if they meet Section 8 eligibility requirements or Reno Housing Authority’s Admission and Continued Occupancy Policy (Reno Housing Authority 2018).

Federal Regulations encourage or require mitigating impacts.

The key environmental law governing federal highway projects is the National Environmental Policy Act.  It requires that agencies identify the adverse environmental impacts of their decision, and then avoid, minimize or mitigate those impacts.  In particular, NEPA mitigation includes “restoring the affected environment” and “compensating for the impact by . . . providing substitute resources or environments.”  Using highway funds to replace housing demolished by a freeway is one key way in which the negative effects of a highway project on an urban community can be mitigated.

CFR § 1508.20 Mitigation.

Mitigation includes:

(a) Avoiding the impact altogether by not taking a certain action or parts of an action.

(b) Minimizing impacts by limiting the degree or magnitude of the action and its implementation.

(c) Rectifying the impact by repairing, rehabilitating, or restoring the affected environment.

(d) Reducing or eliminating the impact over time by preservation and maintenance operations during the life of the action.

(e) Compensating for the impact by replacing or providing substitute resources or environments.

A federal executive order on Environmental Justice directs agencies to pay particular attention to the impacts, including the cumulative impacts of agency decisions on low and moderate income people and people of color.  THe Federal Highway Administration’s Environmental Justice Policy specifically identifies impacts on neighborhoods as “adverse effects” of federal highway projects, and calls for both mitigating these impacts, and consider