PORTLAND – Last Thursday, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) formally withdrew the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion’s “finding of compatibility” with the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan and other local plans. The move follows a lawsuit filed in May 2024 by five neighborhood and environmental advocacy organizations led by No More Freeways, which alleged that the proposed expansion violates Portland’s Comprehensive Plan and Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan. The complaint detailed the many ways the proposed expansion diverges from the city’s 2012 tentative approval. Most notably, community groups are concerned with ODOT’s proposal to double or triple the freeway’s width, creating space for future additional lanes, which directly contradicts Portland’s formally adopted climate, transportation and land use policies.
“ODOT’s withdrawal affirms what No More Freeways and our allies have known all along: this proposal to double the width of the Rose Quarter Freeway through the Albina neighborhood is not in line with Portland’s policies, laws or values,” said Chris Smith, organizer with No More Freeways. “With the combined failure of House Bill 2025 and passage of Trump’s destructive federal bill, the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is billions of dollars short as project costs balloon and ODOT prepares to slash statewide maintenance crews.”
This legal retreat capped off a rough week for the proposed freeway expansion, in which passage of federal legislation and failure to pass a state transportation package further jeopardized the agency’s ability to raise enough money for the $2 billion freeway expansion. As reported by City Observatory and Willamette Week on Thursday, statutory language included in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” rescinds currently unobligated funding from the Neighborhood Equity and Access program. ODOT had been promised over $488 million in federal funding for the Albina Highway Caps, of which only $40 million has already been received by the agency.
Furthermore, the Oregon Legislature failed to pass a transportation package this session. House Bill 2025 would have allocated $125 million a year for ODOT to use for bonding to raise the revenue necessary to complete the I-205 Abernethy Bridge and to start construction on Rose Quarter. Without passage of this bill, the agency instead has no new revenue available to use for this $2 billion expansion and is instead preparing to lay off hundreds of statewide maintenance workers alongside hundreds of other job losses faced by city and county road workers and transit employees.
“We hope this means that ODOT will delay ground breaking on the Rose Quarter freeway widening, and reprogram money to prevent layoffs of critical ODOT maintenance workers who are facing substantial layoffs,” said Allan Rudwick, Chair of the Eliot Neighborhood Association’s Land Use and Transportation Committee.
“With no money and no compatibility with Portland Comprehensive Plan, ODOT is clearly not prepared to deliver on the Rose Quarter Expansion Project that has been threatening to further pollute the Eliot Neighborhood since 2010.”
“Oregon’s streets are more deadly than ever, yet ODOT continues to barrel forward with a multi-billion-dollar freeway expansion the agency can’t afford. ODOT knows that communities across the state suffer from treacherous roads that not only claim lives but leave so many with debilitating, life-changing, injuries,” said Sarah Risser with Families for Safe Streets. “With political will, road fatalities and serious injuries can be eliminated. We’re calling on ODOT and the state legislature to consider right-sized alternatives to this freeway expansion, so Oregon can instead invest in safer streets statewide for all communities.”
This is the third time in three years that ODOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have withdrawn a prior approval after a legal challenge from No More Freeways and allied organizations on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. ODOT withdrew its first finding of compatibility back in January 2022. FHWA then withdrew the Finding of No Significant Impact later that year. Now ODOT has again withdrawn a compatibility finding, this time one that was issued in 2024.
Without this Finding of Compliance, ODOT currently does not have the necessary paperwork or authority to begin construction on the project. The agency had been planning a Groundbreaking Ceremony for the freeway expansion in August despite the enormous budgetary shortfalls and the fact that significant construction of the project is not expected until 2027.
“As ODOT gears up to make unbearable cuts and layoff the hundreds of maintenance and operations staff who plow Oregon mountain passes and repair our highways, it’s unfathomable the agency is gearing up to begin a two billion dollar freeway expansion with barely any of the funding in hand to begin the project,” said Smith. “Obviously, legislators should be demanding that ODOT use every dollar at hand to keep these essential state employees at work maintaining roads, not launching new reckless, cost-bloated megaprojects mired in legal challenges and lacking any significant funding.”
ODOT faces another legal challenge as well. No More Freeways and other community advocates also sued in federal court last May, challenging the Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) issued March 2024 by FHWA purporting to meet National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. The case is expected to advance towards briefing on the merits this fall.
Plaintiffs in the case are represented by the Law Office of Karl G. Anuta. The full complaint is available here.
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