tldr: 2025 is maybe the biggest year yet for our freeway fight – we’ll be demanding legislators prioritize good transportation investments over highway expansion in the legislative session and we’ll be going to court for numerous legal cases. Lawyers and advocacy ain’t cheap – we’re hoping to raise $15,000 in grassroots contributions by the end of the year to hit a match set by two generous donors. Donate and get a button in the mail. Every dollar counts!
2024 was yet another busy year for the seven-year, all-volunteer, david-vs-goliath grassroots campaign to stop ODOT’s proposal to double the width of the Rose Quarter freeway through the Albina neighborhood, and tackle the highway industrial complex that intends to rob Oregon of the funding we need for transit and street safety improvements. And somehow 2025 might be the biggest year yet for our fight. Below is our year-in-review celebrating the thousands of public comments submitted and the fist-shaking organizing we’ve done with our community partners, as well as a sneak peak as to what lies ahead in 2025. Please share this post with your friends and peers, and consider chipping in a few bucks to support us as we gear up for a truly pivotal twelve months in fighting for less air pollution, carbon emissions, and traffic in our city, state and on our planet.
2024 in review
no more freeways’ most litigious year yet
In a banner year for our efforts to hold our regional and state governments accountable for the enormous harm that continued highway expansion poses to our community, No More Freeways took three legal actions this past calendar year. In January, we filed an administrative complaint against Metro asserting the agency’s adopted Regional Transportation Plan relied on faulty traffic projection modeling and was insufficient for the region to meet the state-mandated reduction on carbon emissions. In February The Oregonian wrote about our complaint; we’re expected to have our day in court next month (more below!)
No More Freeways and our multiple co-plaintiffs also filed two lawsuits against the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion – one filed in May alleging that ODOT’s Rose Quarter proposal is out of compliance with the City’s adopted Comprehensive Plan, and another in federal court challenging ODOT for lack of compliance with federal environmental law as established by NEPA. We’re so grateful for Neighbors for Clean Air, the Eliot Neighborhood Association, Families for Safe Streets, BikeLoudPDX and AORTA for joining us as co-plaintiffs. Deposition has started on the comp plan case, and we anticipate hearings this fall on our NEPA case. Stay tuned!
2024 roadshow – y’all showed up
This summer, the legislators embarked on “transportation roadshow” across the state to listen to Oregonians’ concerns and priorities ahead of the legislators’ expected transportation package in next year’s session. No More Freeways and the other members of the Move Oregon Forward coalition turned out in massive numbers at all twelve stops across the state. The No More Freeways volunteer-base submitted hundreds of written comments as well as virtual and in-person testimony throughout the summer; according to an analysis by the Move Oregon Forward coalition, 24% of the comments expressed opposition to continued freeway expansion (compared to less than 5% in support of expansions), and over 64% of Oregonians expressed transit expansion as their top priority.
Interstate bridge replacement gets an earful from community partners
No More Freeways is a member of the Just Crossing Alliance, the coalition tasked with tracking the *other* major freeway expansion in the Portland area – the Interstate Bridge Replacement, the largest infrastructure project in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Over 1000 Portlanders submitted comment through the Just Crossing Alliance’s public comment generator, representing nearly 40% of the comments received. No More Freeways got press attention in November when Willamette Week published our findings that the IBR’s traffic projections are, to quote NMF co-founder Chris Smith, “based on is a work of fiction.” This article builds research conducted by NMF co-founder Joe Cortright, who co-authored a piece in Dissent Magazine.
Willamette Week publishes story on Rose quarter contractors
In September, Willamette Week published a cover story on ODOT’s questionable contracting decisions to manufacture public support for the proposed $1.9 Billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. The newspaper reported that Dr Steven Holt had received $2.7 million in funding from ODOT since 2020 to build community support for the project, despite numerous other community members expressing skepticism that Dr Holt was qualified to be serve the interests of the neighborhood. The article quotes No More Freeways’ co-founder Joe Cortright and many other policymakers about their concerns about the Rose Quarter project.
Support for Boise/Eliot RCN program
Allan Rudwick, a representative of the Eliot Neighborhood Association, has been working for years to encourage the city to explore removing the length I-405 Kirby Avenue offramp whose construction destroyed dozens of homes in the Eliot neighborhood. This fall, No More Freeways rallied our partners to join the Eliot Neighborhood Association and dozens of other community partners in supporting the City of Portland’s application for funds from the federal Reconnecting Communities program to study reconnecting the Boise/Eliot neighborhoods.
NMF supports National movement for freeway expansion Moratorium
This February, No More Freeways joined nearly 200 organizations from around the country (including 17 based in Oregon) in signing the “Communities over Highways” letter organized by national advocacy group America Walks, as covered in BikePortland. No More Freeways also helped convene a conversation on fighting freeways at the 2024 YIMBYtown conference in Austin, Texas, and is gearing up to support a second national convening of freeway fighters in Minneapolis this spring.
The latest on the Rose Quarter:
After ODOT lost out on over $750 million in federal funding for the Rose Quarter this summer, the agency cobbled together a proposal to begin “Phase 1” of the expansion by leveraging the existing federal grant funding for the Albina Highway Caps awarded in April with funding taken from the currently-under-construction Abernethy Bridge Expansion and numerous other statewide road maintenance projects across the state.
Despite ODOT’s propaganda and bluster and their expensive photo ops coming up this summer, let’s be clear – the Rose Quarter project remains anything but inevitable. As reported in the Portland Mercury, ODOT remains short over a billion dollars to fully fund this project, and our two Rose Quarter related lawsuits each pose problems for the agency that could halt their efforts. We remain eager to support public investment in the Albina highway caps, which are significantly cheaper to build without spending billions on additional lanes of polluting freeway expansion, and uplift the comments of the Eliot Neighborhood Association noting the inadequacies of the local improvements proposed by the agency.
all eyes on ’25
This all sets up 2025 as perhaps our biggest year yet in our fight against the freeway industrial complex. No More Freeways will be asking you to contact your legislators throughout this upcoming session and demand legislators prioritize investment in transit and street safety across the state instead of spending billions to double the width of I-5 through the Albina neighborhood in the 2025 transportation package, and to commit ODOT to greater accountability to reforming our transportation system.
Additionally, No More Freeways is asking you for financial support to cover our legal bills as we prepare to hold ODOT accountable in court.
After seven years of rabblerousing, No More Freeways expects all three of our lawsuits to advance this year – and we’re proud to announce we get our very first day in court this January. At the end of the month, No More Freeways’ own Joe Cortright will be speaking to the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) appealing Metro’s “Major Report” to the Department of Land and Conservation and Development (DLCD) claiming the agency is in compliance with statewide climate targets. No More Freeways has pointed out that Metro has missed their targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and we are challenging LCDC to take more corrective steps so Metro will be forced to take action to meet targets in the future. Our lawsuits against the Rose Quarter are also advancing to a date in court as well, and we’re eager to share more information as it is all finalized.
the pitch. we genuinely can’t do it without you.
In just the last three years, No More Freeways has received support from literal hundreds of unique individuals – two thirds of whom have given $50 or less. ODOT has spent literal hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, planners, consultants, and engineers – literal thousands of times as much as we have. And yet, from continued critical press coverage, growing skepticism from local elected officials, and numerous lawsuits, we are continuing to build our case that the fate of our community, state and planet demand a reckoning with ODOT and the legislators who continue to support endless road expansion over the needs of maintenance, safety and transit. Our work is certainly cut out for us, but our grassroots movement is in support of a righteous cause, at a time in which local climate action and community organizing are the two praxis we believe in the most as we gear up for 2025.
To paraphrase a remark we heard from Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson when he visited town this autumn, we welcome the David vs Goliath fight against ODOT – we know how that story ends.
Two generous donors have offered to match donations of up to $15,000 to support our legal work and advocacy – can we count on your support in what may the most important year yet of the freeway fight?
We are so grateful to everyone who has helped support us over the past few years – and look forward to your help in the year ahead, however you are able to provide it.
Onward!