🗞️ Did y’all know we even got Ted Wheeler to ask for an EIS?
(and other news updates) 🗞️

• “Days before Oregon’s top transportation decision-making body is expected to vote on what to do with the nearly $500 million Rose Quarter freeway project, four Portland politicians who’ve been involved in closed-door briefings for the past six months said they still didn’t know what’s going to happen….Of the four, only Commissioner Chloe Eudaly had publicly pushed for a formal in-depth study.”– The Oregonian: Portland politicians sound alarm over Rose Quarter freeway decision days before scheduled vote
• “Instead of facing the utter failure to meet our stated climate goals, city and state leaders are endorsing spending billions of dollars on freeway expansions which are guaranteed to increase carbon emissions and car dependence. Our leaders are pretending to be climate champions, but their actions make them effectively the worst sort of climate change denialists, giving the impression that something is being done, while enabling the same failed policies and spending decisions that created the climate crisis to march on unquestioned.”– Joe Cortright, in an editorial published in the Oregonian: Opinion: Portland’s phony, failing climate policy
• “Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler today joined Metro Council President Lynn Peterson, Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson and City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly in calling for a full-blown environmental impact statement, which would delay the project.

  Eudaly had previously called for an environmental impact statement, as have Portland Public Schools and House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland).”

  Willamette Week: Portland Mayor Joins Chorus Calling for a More Thorough Review of I-5 Expansion in the Rose Quarter 

• “The Portland Public Schools board today urged Gov. Kate Brown to tell the Oregon Transportation Commission to back away from consideration of a hot-button Portland issue at commission meeting scheduled for Dec. 16 in Lebanon, Ore.”Willamette Week: Portland Public Schools Urges Gov. Kate Brown to Move Discussion of ODOT’s Rose Quarter Expansion Closer to Portland

Solidarity with the #UpWithRiders campaign

No More Freeways and Sunrise PDX joined OPAL at their #UpWithRiders rally at this last week’s TriMet meeting. What a fantastic turn out. We’re pleased to be signed on to their campaign – every dollar that we divest from freeway expansion is a dollar we can spend making transit accessible, reliable, frequent, and desirable for every Portlander living in the region. Our full testimony is HERE –
We even made it onto the tv!

BUT SERIOUSLY:
Today’s the Deadline.
Demand an EIS.

We sent in hundreds of postcards to the Oregon Transportation Commission, and we sent in hundreds more emails. We’ve got numerous elected officials and community organizations reaching out to demand that Governor Kate Brown and the Oregon Transportation Commission take us seriously and conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement.