The Oregon Transportation Commission is, ostensibly, the entity that that oversees the Oregon Department of Transportation. Given recent headlines about how scary the climate apocalypse is getting and also how truly terrible ODOT has been on drawing up a meaningful climate action plan, you’d think the OTC would be issuing orders for ODOT to prioritize investments in public transportation, biking and walking instead of freeway expansion.

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong. At this point, the OTC seems eager to continue obliviously promoting the status quo and allowing ODOT to move forward with spending billions of dollars on freeway expansions all over the Portland region while traffic fatalities on ODOT’s orphan highways continue to skyrocket, carbon emissions continue to rise, and the agency gets increasingly skeptical press coverage from The Oregonian.

Thanks to the passage of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the OTC will be responsible for directing how ODOT should spend upwards of $1.2 billion in federal money. No More Freeways joined the Clean and Just Transportation Network on a letter to the OTC last month demanding investments in transportation infrastructure that reduces carbon emissions instead of increases them.

Now, No More Freeways is calling on you to join us. We need you to email the Oregon Transportation Commission and tell them to invest in green transportation options – and no more freeway expansions.

If you’ve ever wanted to speak directly to individuals responsible for oversight of ODOT’s carbon emissions, and the political body theoretically capable of pushing the agency to a greener future, we need you now to drop the Oregon Transportation Commission an email. You can share your climate story, your frustration with abysmal transit service across the Portland region (and across the entire state), or your anger at ODOT’s unwillingness to invest to stop rising traffic violence. This is your chance to demand that Oregon’s appointed officials rise to the challenge that this political moment requires and push for a greener, less polluting ODOT.

Potential talking points:

• ODOT should only invest in projects proven to reduce carbon emissions
• Support the policy recommendations made by the Clean and Just Transportation Network.
• Support the policy demands made by the youth climate justice leaders at Sunrise PDX as part of their ongoing YouthVsODOT strike.
• Every federal dollar should support a Green New Deal to Build Back Better, not a Grey Old Deal that continues to pave over the entire state of Oregon.

Back in November, we asked you to contact the Metro Council and demand that they prioritize climate as they move forward with an MTIP amendment to give more funding to the Interstate Freeway Expansion (they’re calling it the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, or IBR, even though they are hardly “replacing” anything.) As Joe Cortright has relentlessly documented, the current iteration of the IBR will produce 100,000 tons of carbon emissions a year, ODOT’s traffic projections are older than some of the Sunrise youth, Metro’s falling woefully short of their carbon goals, and the project is directly antithetical to the planning process that Metro actually exists to undertake.

Y’all responded, big time. Metro received 300+ emails from across the region, each of you demanding that the elected leaders demonstrate their commitment to reducing carbon emissions by asking ODOT tough questions about how the proposed freeway expansion would impact carbon emissions, air pollution and traffic congestion.

Unfortunately, the Metro Council didn’t hear you, and therefore needs to hear from you again. Metro wrote to advocates in a letter this week stating that they believe the proposed budgetary allocation included in the MTIP amendment is ultimately necessary for ODOT to have the resources to study the climate impacts as the advocates have been demanding.

We’re skeptical of that, to say the least. There are deep flaws in ODOT’s process and proposal. Allowing this to proceed now and failing to ask tough questions now, will make it far more difficult to insist on getting honest answers later on. We need our leaders to hear from us how we expect them to hold ODOT accountable to not setting the planet on fire before their vote on Tuesday.

We need you to contact the Metro Council and urge them to commit to drawing a line in the sand and opposing any iteration of a proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement that increases vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Simply put, we cannot spend billions of dollars to encourage more driving with more lanes of freeway as the planet slides into climate chaos. The region desperately needs to invest in transportation infrastructure to connect Portland with Vancouver and SW Washington; ODOT and WSDOT are not proposing anything but the failed status quo of continued freeway expansion they’ve delivered at great cost for decades.

Here’s three ways you can help, right now:

1 – Attend today’s YouthVsODOT climate strike outside Metro.

Today (Wednesday, January 5th), the Sunrise youth’s bi-weekly climate strike moves across the river. The YouthVsODOT strike (garnering plenty of local and national attention lately) will be held outside the Metro Council building. In attendance will be members of No More Freeways, testimonials from the teenage climate activists with Sunrise PDX, and Beaverton City Council candidate Kevin Teater. We will be handing out postcards to write to the Metro Council pleading for climate action.

Bring a K95 mask; we hope to see you there!

Wednesday January 5
4:30-6:00pm
Metro Regional Center (we’ll meet in the Plaza)
600 NE Grand
Portland OR 97232

2 – Testify to the Metro Council during the hearing Thursday morning.

Want to speak to your elected officials directly? Metro Council will be taking public testimony before their vote on the morning of Thursday, January 6. Metro’s website has the link to the zoom, and provides information on how to sign up to testify virtually:

Those wishing to testify orally are encouraged to sign up in advance by either: (a) contacting the legislative coordinator by phone at 503-797-1916 and providing your name and the agenda item on which you wish to testify; or (b) registering by email by sending your name and request to testify on AGENDA ITEM 4.3 to legislativecoordinator@oregonmetro.gov. Those requesting to comment
during the meeting can do so by using the “Raise Hand” feature in Zoom or emailing the legislative coordinator at legislativecoordinator@oregonmetro.gov. Individuals will have three minutes to testify unless otherwise stated at the meeting.

3 – Write the Metro Council an email asking if we can trust them with our future.

Can’t make it to either event on Wednesday or Thursday? You can still send the Metro Councilor an email before their vote Thursday morning. Use our form below to remind the Metro Council that we are counting on brave, unapologetic climate leadership, and that climate leaders don’t widen freeways. No More Freeways is asking Metro to

1. delay approving the MTIP amendment for additional funding until ODOT provides a public hearing to learn more about the project, and
2. pass a resolution about Metro’s vision for the bridge proposal, with specific language detailing how the agency will only support a project that reduced carbon emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT).

Thanks for your support – let’s make sure Metro knows we’ll have their back when they side with the planet over the freeway-builders!

Fill out the form below to email the Metro Council:

It’s the end of the year, which means its time for the fifth annual (!) No More Freeways year-in-review, in which we tell you all about what a busy year we’ve had fighting ODOT and the freeway industrial complex. If you’re grateful for our accomplishments, we encourage you to join our newsletter and consider throwing a few bucks to our freeway fighting fund.

No More Freeways Sued ODOT. TWICE.

This, unsurprisingly, was our big news of the year. In early April, No More Freeways joined with co-plaintiffs Neighbors for Clean Air and the Eliot Neighborhood Association and filed a lawsuit against the federal government demanding a full Environmental Impact Statement that studied alternatives to freeway expansion for tackling the traffic congestion at the Rose Quarter. We also wrote Secretary Pete Buttigieg a letter stating our concerns about the federal government’s approval of ODOT’s Environmental Assessment, encouraging him to revisit the project, and followed up in July.

In our main federal NEPA lawsuit, seeking a full Environmental Impact Statement and consideration of pricing and transit alternatives to the I-5 Rose Quarter “Improvements”, the court has finalized a date by which ODOT and the FHWA must produce the record of the decision making process for their Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). The case will then be argued later in the spring.

Our second suit at the state level contends that ODOT’s findings of compatibility with Portland’s Comprehensive Plan are flawed and premature since ODOT continues to redesign the project. There is relatively little case law in this area and the Land Use Board of Appeals has recently decided that they do not have jurisdiction. That means that the case will now move to Oregon Circuit Court where we’ll have the opportunity to depose and take testimony from officials involved in making the findings.

Our litigation earned significant local media coverage, and got picked up by national publications including Streetsblog and Bloomberg’s CityLab. You can read our full complaint here.

hundreds attend tubman rally

In one of the first in-person events many of us attended since May 2020, No More Freeways partnered with the Eliot Neighborhood Association to hold a rally at Harriet Tubman Middle School to celebrate our lawsuit and demand a full Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. We were blessed with numerous amazing speakers, including former Tubman students and teachers, advocates from Oregon Walks and Neighbors for Clean Air, and youth climate justice advocates.

youth vs odot: EIGHTEEN weeks and counting

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It started with a simple idea from Aurelia, a sixteen year old climate organizer with Sunrise PDX, who posted on the slack channel: “I want to hold a climate strike to stop the freeway.” After the first rally in April brought about a small crowd, the recurring strike has met outside ODOT every other week since, growing considerably in size. The recurring protest is to call attention to the Sunrise PDX demands of ODOT and Governor Brown, including a moratorium on freeway expansion within the Urban Growth Boundary and a youth climate justice member appointed to the Oregon Transportation Commission. The group has been meeting outside the ODOT headquarters every other week since then, with crowds as large as 75 people in the summer. The Sunrise youth have started gaining national press attention (and more is coming) for these strikes, and more importantly, local elected officials are paying attention. State Representative Khanh Pham attended in September, pledging to push for more accountability and transparency from ODOT and more legislative scrutiny on their proposed freeway expansions. YouthVsODOT has since also hosted Representatives Wlnsvey Campos and Maxine Dexter, and the General Climate Strike that drew a crowd of thousands took a deliberate tour in front of the ODOT building in September. Advocates from Sunrise PDX have appeared on KGW’s Straight Talk with Laural Porter, OPB’s Think Out Loud, and in the Portland Mercury to share their demands. Most recently, Sunrise wrote a letter demanding that any infrastructure funding from the federal government should be spent on projects that reduce driving.

The YouthVSODOT rally continues to meet every other Wednesday; join us for week nineteen Wednesday, January 5th, 2022 outside the Metro Council in advance of their vote to allocate $35 million more for the proposed revival of the Columbia River Crossing. Learn more on the YouthVSODOT Instagram page.

legislative wranglin’ in salem

No More Freeways helped organize hundreds of postcards and emails to elected officials in Salem opposing a bill that would give greater bonding authority for ODOT to spend more money on freeway expansion. Our efforts to stop House Bill 3055 represented the first time that No More Freeways organized in earnest at the legislative level of government, after spending much of the past few years working at municipal, regional, gubernatorial and agency-specific entities.

As we wrote in our written testimony on HB 3065 (the predecessor to 3055), “As our planet lurches towards climate catastrophe, it’s imperative that local and statewide elected officials hold ODOT accountable to investing in infrastructure that doesn’t further clog our community with cars, pollute our children’s lungs or set on fire the planet they stand to inherit.”

While our efforts gained significant attention from local media, the Oregon Legislature voted to pass HB 3055 on the final day of session. In what can only be considered coincidental timing, the vote to pass the bill was held mere days before Oregon’s catastrophic climate-induced heat wave, in which temperatures reached over 116 degrees and over 100 Oregonians died. After the bill was passed, we turned our attention to Governor Kate Brown, who eventually signed the bill despite Sunrise hosting an organized protest outside Mahonia in Salem.

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While we still believe the vote represents a gross abdication of responsibility from the Oregon Legislature to hold ODOT to any meaningful goals on climate or transportation reform, we were heartened to see a handful of votes in opposition to the bill. A special shoutout is in order for Rep Campos, as well as Senators Kathleen Taylor and Michael Dembrow, who voted against the measure. Speaker Tina Kotek also voted against the bill, citing a need for ODOT to work on “right sizing projects,” although she played a significant role in getting the bill to the floor for a vote.

Furthermore, as another silver lining, advocates including Rep Pham, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, Oregon Walks and APANO successfully won funding from the legislature to fund a complete retrofit to 82nd Avenue, ODOT’s dangerous highway that runs through the Jade District. 82nd Avenue was the location of two tragic traffic fatalities this spring – that’s two more traffic fatalities than the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion has seen in decades. Let’s hope that legislators find opportunities to fix the rest of the orphan highways in the state, including locally TV Highway, Barbur, McLoughlin and Powell. Clearly, ODOT fixing these dangerous streets should be a top priority over freeway widening…

Thanks to public records, We caught ODOT lying a buncha times

For a public works project with a proposed $1.2 billion project and countless millions spent on public relations and community engagement, you’d imagine ODOT staff would have ample resources to provide information to any member of the public inquiring about the impacts this expansion would have on our community. Curiously, though, No More Freeways spent over three months asking ODOT staffers (as well as testifying at numerous bodies including the state legislature and the Oregon Transportation Commission) a very basic question: how many feet wide is the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion? Joe and Aaron testified to the Oregon Transportation Commission in January asking this question, but ultimately, ODOT treated this simple fact as a state secret.

Ultimately, as Willamette Week reported, City Observatory obtained through public records requests numerous documents showing that ODOT’s proposed freeway expansion is 160 feet – wide enough for ten full lanes. When ODOT was confronted with this, ODOT’s staff said they were working with TriMet to exploring building bus rapid transit lines, but as Willamette Week reported, that seems to be a dubious claim.

No More Freeways and City Observatory also caught ODOT directly lying to the Historic Albina Advisory Board about the air pollution that this freeway expansion would bring to the Albina neighborhood, claiming they hired independent air quality experts to assess the project while not giving the researchers opportunity to review ODOT’s corrupt traffic projection data.

Our public records requests also found documents showing that ODOT planned to take PPS land in Tubman’s backyard for the freeway expansion, and apparently hadn’t told the school. The response? Well, instead of demanding that ODOT find ways to minimize air pollution by implementing congestion pricing instead of freeway expansion, Governor Kate Brown and the state legislature seem prepared to offer PPS tens of millions of dollars to relocate Tubman; latest news suggests they will displace another historically Black elementary school in the process. Stay tuned; we’re coordinating with the Tubman PTSA and other neighborhood education activists to track PPS’s plans.

the zombie bridge is back: New Name, Same Columbia River Crossing

ODOT and WSDOT are bringing the band back together!

After spending $200 million on consultants over a decade to ultimately build nothing, ODOT and WSDOT are once again beating the drums about the need to spend approximately five billion dollars on a ten lane, five-mile freeway expansion across the Columbia River. The project has been re-branded as the “Interstate Bridge Replacement Project,” but as Ryan Packer has reported at BikePortland, all of the iterations of the project currently being studied essentially recycle the previous plans for the proposed freeway expansion from over a decade ago.

In our first call-to-action for the CRC 2.0, we got hundreds of people across the Portland region to email the Metro Council and ask for them to demand specific concessions from ODOT to study alternatives to freeway expansion before allocating the agency another $35 million further in study. No More Freeways also signed onto a letter asking Metro to postpone the vote until after a public hearing on the project.

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We are eager to continue working with partners including 1000 Friends of Oregon, The Street Trust, and Oregon Environmental Council to track this gargantuan freeway expansion and push for a sensible alternative. Stay Tuned!

Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion Stumbles Forward with “Hybrid 3”, but Funding still a challenge

In September, the Oregon Transportation Commission voted to approve “Hybrid 3” for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, in a deal brokered by Governor Kate Brown. This proposal represents a fairly successful set of improvements to the surface level plans for the proposed expansion. As No More Freeways wrote in our testimony to the OTC, we are delighted to see that the Albina Vision Trust and the Historic Albina Advisory Board have been able to successfully advocate for positive outcomes for the community. Their continued leadership, moral clarity, and commitment to wealth generation and healing what was the largest Black neighborhood in the state of Oregon is commendable and inspiring.

However, as we’ve said for years – we don’t have to widen the freeway to add caps and heal the Albina neighborhood. The core objections of our NEPA lawsuit – that ODOT deliberately manipulated traffic data and refused to study congestion pricing ahead of freeway expansion – remains intact despite these significant improvements to the original surface-level plans. As we wrote in our testimony:

There is no need to expand the freeway in order to cap it. An alternative to
cap the existing highway should be studied. Maintaining the existing roadway
dimensions makes potential caps cheaper to build, healthier for the community,
less polluting, and more capable of supporting additional housing and community
space. We find it puzzling that ODOT has never given the community the
opportunity to consider alternatives to adding additional polluting freeway lanes,
especially given that congestion pricing studies by ODOT’s own consultants
suggest the additional freeway lanes aren’t necessary to reduce traffic
congestion.

Despite the unanimous vote in support of Hybrid 3, there’s still no plan to fund the project, which has seen cost increases to over $1 billion. The OTC insisted these extra costs should be born by local governments like the City of Portland, Multnomah County or Metro; the OTC was expected to hear a funding proposal at their December meeting, but that was curiously postponed. Stay tuned to see how ODOT tries to cobble together the enormous funding – and remember, the proposed buildable caps would be cheaper, healthier, easier, and greener to build without widening the existing freeway below. The only way to study these alternatives legitimately demands a full Environmental Impact Statement.

other miscellaneous odds and ends

• In November, The Oregonian‘s Ted Sickinger and Jayati Ramakrishnan published what might be the most significant, exposé on ODOT’s ongoing failures to reform to reduce driving and carbon emissions in years. It’s a must read article, and hopefully it spurs future attention to ODOT’s proposed freeway expansions.
• Ka’sha Bernard wrote an op-ed in BikePortland about her frustrations that ODOT was deliberately pitting environmental and racial justice advocates against each other. Sunrise Rural Oregon’s Cassie Wilson wrote a spectacular op-ed in the Portland Tribune about her opposition to I-205 expansion, and wrote an op-ed in BikePortland about approaching transportation justice through the lens of disability justice. Rukaiyah Adams and Keith Wilson wrote an op-ed in the Oregonian about the importance of healing Albina with buildable caps.
• No More Freeways turned out testimony this summer in opposition of amendments to Metro’s MTIP to proceed with an expansion of I-205 in Oregon City. While the measure ultimately passed, Metro Councilor Juan Carlos González voted in opposition, and made a bold statement that he would never again vote for a freeway expansion. His comments before his vote (as reported in BikePortland) set a bold new tone that we hope the rest of the elected officials in the region will adopt!
• ODOT spent tens of thousands of dollars on consultants to produce a greenwashed, woke-washed mailer about the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion sent to nearby residents. In addition to the content of the mailer being demonstrably misleading about what the proposed expansion was promising to the community, the mailer also included an astonishing 23 typos.
• Make sure you listen to OPB’s Dave Miller grill the Oregon Transportation Commission in September and Brendan Finn of ODOT’s Urban Mobility Office in December.
• We’ve been connecting with freeway fighters across the country, and we were delighted to see Secretary Pete Buttigieg weigh in to help advocates slow TxDOT’s proposed $7 billion freeway expansion in Houston.
• In February, No More Freeways spearheaded a letter signed by over thirty groups asking Governor Kate Brown to be thoughtful about who to appoint to the Oregon Transportation Commission. We look forward to working with Dean Burke, who was appointed in the fall.
• Aaron and Joe appeared on The Overhead Wire podcast to talk about our freeway fight in April, and in July Aaron was a guest on the bikeportland podcast to talk about our freeway fight!
• Chris Smith wrote a memo to JPACT explaining exactly why we must push for a reduction in Vehicle Miles Traveled in future transportation planning, noting that vehicle electrification alone simply won’t allow us to hit our carbon reduction goals. Chris has also been closely watching the numerous committees on tolling, and wrote this testimony on behalf of NMF.
• While ODOT continues to move forward with widening roads, the state DOT of Colorado is now going to require every transportation project to be reviewed for it’s impact to carbon emissions. This is a significant development, and Oregon urgently needs to adopt similar policy.
• Most recently, Joe Cortright pointed out to Willamette Week how ODOT’s own projections suggest the agency won’t come close to hitting it’s carbon emission reduction targets.

What’s in store for 2022?

2021 was clearly a big year for No More Freeways, and the pace only seems to increase as ODOT gears up to build more freeways and we gear up to fight them. As The Portland Mercury reports, there’s an awful lot of money coming into ODOT’s pockets from the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. No More Freeways joined numerous partners with the Clean and Just Transportation Network to write this letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission, following a similar letter from Sunrise PDX, demanding that the OTC only invest in projects that reduce carbon emissions. We also expect ODOT to continue to push hard on the Interstate Bridge Replacement, and for our lawsuits to advance. Stay tuned!

And now, a note from Aaron Brown, co-founder of No More Freeways:

It sure has been a helluva year for our humble freeway fight. I’m often asked why I’ve spent so much of my life volunteering on this campaign; aside from being very stubborn, the best answer I’ve got is that No More Freeways has brought together so many inspiring people putting in the elbow grease to rid their community of the Grey Old Deal so we can make space for the Green New Deal. Every foot of auxiliary lane we stop leads to millions more dollars for transit and sidewalks, as well as cleaner air and more congestion-free commutes. As we lurch into the climate apocalypse, every single foot of removed freeway is worth fighting for. And we’re so grateful for the leadership from the teens from Sunrise – their moral clarity, bravery, intelligence, and ability to righteously demand climate leadership is deeply affirming. We can only hope to do them right.

No More Freeways and our partners are using every tool at our disposal to dismantle this Grey Old Deal and freeway industrial complex – we’ve got protests in the streets, we’ve got lawsuits, we’ve got public testimony and letter-writing campaigns to targeted elected and appointed officials, we’ve got a litany of allies in environmental and transportation justice organizations we work with closely across the state, and we’ve got policy wonks churning out white papers envisioning a transportation system for a better Oregon.

When you donate to No More Freeways, you’re giving our all-volunteer team the resources to continue to pursue public records requests, hire excellent (and deeply discounted) NEPA lawyers, promote our campaigns on social media and yes, to make sure we’ve got plenty of buttons and stickers to hand out.

A generous anonymous donor has pledged to give up to $5000 in matching donations for our freeway fight fund. Whether you can give $5000, $500, $50, or $15, every dollar makes a difference – and we’ll be sure to mail you some buttons and stickers, no matter how much you give.

See you in 2022! Rest up – we have a lot more freeways to fight.

As reported last week by The Oregonian and Willamette Week, Governor Brown has indicated a willingness to work with Portland Public Schools to find funding for the relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School. We’re grateful to see the Oregonian speak extensively to Adah Crandall, a former Tubman student and current Grant High School sophomore, about her concerns that PPS and the Governor need to be as worried about carbon pollution as they are about air pollution. The official No More Freeways statement is below:

“For years, No More Freeways has elevated community voices concerned about the pollution ODOT’s proposed freeway expansion would bring to the Albina neighborhood, and we’re thrilled to see Portland Public Schools join us in fighting for their students’ unambiguous right to clean air. It’s difficult to imagine ODOT’s expansion providing restorative justice to the Albina community when it’s evident the pollution from the extra lanes will give nearby residents even more asthma, dementia and cancer. Moving Tubman might allow ODOT to outrun poor air pollution for students, but it will be impossible for students to outrun the rising oceans or wildfires exacerbated by the freeway expansion’s bloated carbon emissions. We implore Governor Brown to demand an Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the impacts ODOT’s proposed freeway expansion would have on our community, our lungs, and our planet. As smoke fills our state and drought threatens our waters, nothing less than an EIS is acceptable to current and future generations demanding action commensurate to the scale of the climate emergency.”

This past weekend, the Pacific Northwest was hit with an unprecedented, lethal climate disaster. The temperatures above 115 degrees melted wires, buckled roads, and led to the deaths of hundreds of Americans and Canadians. As of July 1st, Multnomah County is reporting 65 deaths, a number that’s almost certain to rise over the days and weeks ahead.

This same weekend, the Oregon Legislature also voted to approve HB 3055, which would give ODOT a blank check to bond against toll revenue indefinitely to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on freeway expansions. 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation. Paying for freeway widenings off of tolling is like paying for coal plants with the revenue from a carbon tax – the whole point of the funding mechanism is that it’s supposed to disincentivize certain activities and create a stable revenue system to spend on building new infrastructure that helps retire the socially bad behavior.

Governor Brown has an opportunity to cement her legacy as either an unapologetic champion for climate action by vetoing this bill and demanding ODOT focus on preparing for a low-carbon future, or just going down in the history books as yet another politician unwilling or unable to stand up to the powerful interests, agencies and institutions that profit from the destruction of our communities, our state, our planet.

Governor Brown’s wouldn’t be standing alone by staking a position against this bill. Freshman Representative WLnsvey Campos voted NO on HB 3055B, saying “As someone who deeply believes that it is urgent we act to halt climate change with all possible avenues, I could not in good conscience vote in favor of an infrastructure bill that doesn’t address the biggest threat of our lifetime.” House Speaker Tina Kotek, an original champion of the bill, also ultimately voted against the legislation, citing concerns about the need for ODOT to right-size their projects. Senators Michael Dembrow and Kathleen Taylor also voted against the measure after receiving emails from dozens of constituents over the last week pleading for desperate climate action.

There is undoubtedly a need to invest in infrastructure to alleviate traffic congestion as we (hopefully) leave the pandemic in the rearview. ODOT’s freeway expansions will not do a damn thing for congestion.

There is undeniably a need for economic stimulus and job creation from building infrastructure. The state could create 70% more jobs by investing in road maintenance, as well as biking, walking, and transit investments instead of freeway widening.

We urgently need to address the state’s horrific epidemic of traffic violence, with over 400 Oregonians dying every year on our streets. ODOT’s urban freeways, however, are among the most safe facilities we have – and the agency is responsible for decades of divestment on orphan highways like TV Highway, McLoughlin Boulevard, SE Powell and N/NE Lombard that are the location of the overwhelming majority of traffic fatalities in the Portland region.

Finally, with the state bracing for unfathomably grim wildfires this summer, as well as increased flooding, rising oceans and droughts in the years to come, it’s unconscionable to give ODOT a blank check to spend all of their money on freeways that will only cause more carbon emissions. ODOT could be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on passenger rail, frequent bus service, light rail, sidewalks, bike lanes, intercity buses, transit electrification – all of which would address congestion for our growing state and create more jobs while lower carbon emissions.

HB 3055 is a step in the wrong direction. As Governor McCall once said, “Some highway engineers have a mentality … that would run an eight-lane freeway through the Taj Mahal. That is our problem.” This is an opportunity to push Governor Brown to channel Governor McCall and leave a similar legacy – that Oregon will take immediate action to reduce our transportation-based carbon emissions and be a national leader in decarbonizing our transportation system.

No More Freeways’ letter to Governor Brown demanding a veto on HB 3055:

No More Freeways’ testimony to the Oregon Senate opposing HB 3055:

What to write in testimony:

1. Who are ya? Include your full name, and if you feel comfortable, give your address as well.
2. Be specific with the bill number: Make sure you mention in the first line or two that you’re writing in to oppose HB 3055, the ODOT Freeway Slush Fund.
3. Personalize the letter! If you already wrote your legislator, congrats – you can recycle virtually the same language for the Governor. You don’t have to be a policy expert on the legislation to have an opinion; in fact, for the majority of the people writing in, personal stories and experiences are likely more important to share at this point. If you’re feeling climate anxiety as these wildfires pick up, be sure to mention you’d rather see legislative commitment to greening our transportation system! If you’re furious about ODOT’s abdicated responsibility on the orphan highways, demand that they push for the slush fund money to go towards fixing up 82nd Avenue, TV Highway, Barbur, and McLoughlin and other dangerous roads before we widen other streets. If you are a transportation geek and want to see more money for road maintenance, bike paths, better transit service, high speed rail, commuter rail – share your story! This is our chance to show Governor Brown that every day Oregonians are eager to see leadership on chipping away at the freeway industrial complex – the grey old deal – and investing in a more equitable, sustainable future.
   
   EXAMPLES
   • I am writing you to ask you to vote against HB 3055; climate leaders don’t widen freeways, and I’m concerned this bill gives ODOT a blank check to widen freeways in clackamas county when we instead need to be building a low-carbon transportation system running off of transit, biking and walking.
   • Please vote no on HB 3055 – there isn’t a single freeway expansion anywhere in North America that has ever solved traffic congestion, and ODOT’s proposals to spend hundreds of millions on the I-5 Boone Bridge and I-205 Oregon City project are robbing us of the opportunity to invest in better transportation systems that actually address congestion. We don’t know what commuting patterns we will have post-pandemic, and we certainly don’t need to throw away hundreds of millions of bucks on infrastructure that has never solved congestion.
   • I don’t believe ODOT should be trusted with the hundreds of millions of dollars in Bond funding that would be allowed until HB 3055. Why should current and future generations be on the hook to pay for these massive freeway expansions that don’t serve their needs and are actively frying the planet that they stand to inherit? Please direct ODOT to spend toll-revenue on fixing up orphan highways, which frequently maim and kill Oregonians biking, walking and driving on these dangerous arterials.
   • The state is literally on fire right now, we are recovering from a lethal climate disaster, and we’re prepared for a miserable summer of wildfires – we should probably stop giving ODOT blank checks to widen freeways when 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation. Please listen to Sunrise PDX and No More Freeways and vote no on HB 3055 until the ODOT freeway widening slush fund is removed from the omnibus bill.

4. If you don’t mind, feel free to send us a copy of the text you sent to the Governor – we love seeing all the wonderful testimony! (info at no more freeways pdx dot com)

5. If you really want to help us, post this link on whatever platform of social media you use to discuss your climate anxiety. Facebook, twitter, instagram, nextdoor, what have you – if you want to help us make sure the Governor understands the importance of vetoing this bill, we need as many voices as we can get reaching out to her office and pleading with her to show an iota of climate leadership during these unprecedented times.

FRIDAY JUNE 25 UPDATE: HB 3055B has passed the Oregon House, but it’s not too late to email your Senator. They are expected to vote on this bill in the next 48 hours – please drop your Senator a line!!!

HERE’s the official No More Freeways testimony about why HB 3055B is bad fiscal, climate, and transportation policy.

About a month ago, we put out a call-to-action to ask your help to write testimony for the Joint Committee on Transportation to oppose HB 3065, which included language for Speaker Tina Kotek’s ODOT freeway slush fund to write the agency a blank check to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on widening I-205 near Oregon City and I-5 near Wilsonville. Your response was overwhelming, with testimony coming in from all over the state to articulate why you think that the legislature should avoid continuing to feed the beast of the freeway industrial complex. Our efforts got written up in Oregon Public Broadcasting (with some great quotes from SunrisePDX’s Cassie Wilson; check out her new op-ed in BikePortland!)

While HB 3065 died in committee, all of the legislative language that would give ODOT the right to bond against projected future tolling revenue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to widen I-205 and I-5 in Wilsonville has been snuck into HB 3055. This bill is ODOT’s omnibus legislation for the session, and includes a handful of positive elements like authority for urban counties to set lower speed limits and further policy language for figuring out congestion pricing and tolling.

What’s bad about HB 3055: The bill increases ODOT’s short term borrowing limit from $100 million to $600 million, and allows ODOT to roll over any short term borrowing into long term bonds, and repay those bonds with any available money, including federal money. Combined with other language in the –15 amendment, the net result is that ODOT has been directed to borrow money to cover the unfunded freeway expansion mandates leftover from the 2017 legislative session, and is allowed to back up that borrowing with any money available, and to pledge any and all toll revenue that it might receive from tolling I-5 and I-205, essentially destroying any hope for variable tolls that would drop to zero off-peak, that might be imposed solely for managing traffic.

Instead, any and all toll revenue will be poured into freeway expansion. While the state burns from unseasonably early wildfires, the state legislature could recognize that 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation and that the state simply must immediately invest in public transportation instead of further freeway expansions to hit our carbon emission reduction goals. The legislature could demand that ODOT to fix up deadly orphan highways, invest in frequent train service through the Willamette Valley, give TriMet funds to electrify buses, promote basic road maintenance or give local municipalities the revenue for Safe Routes to School. All of these investments would lower our carbon emissions, reduce air pollution, provide mobility options for the communities who need them the most, and make our streets safer. Instead, the legislature is once again giving ODOT a blank check, this time for two massively large freeway expansions in Clackamas County, as we await to see just how unfathomably terrible our wildfire season will be this summer.

It’s increasingly apparent to us at No More Freeways that a major reason that ODOT continues to aggressively pursue freeway expansions all over the Portland region is that the Oregon Legislature dictates that they do so. While there’s plenty of need for new leadership at the Oregon Transportation Commission, within ODOT’s upper-brass, and other regional and statewide transportation entities like TriMet, the state legislature is the body most responsible for allocating massive sums of money and setting the tone for our climate-arsonist practices of spending billions on freeways instead of directing revenue to transit service, fixing up ODOT’s orphan highways, basic road maintenance, and investing in commuter and high speed rail.

With the legislative session winding down, emailing your legislators about your concerns about the freeway slush fund included in HB 3055 is essentially your last chance to heckle your elected officials about the urgent need to stop widening freeways for almost the next eighteen months.

HB 3055 has been approved by the Oregon House, but still might fail in the Oregon Senate, which is why we need you to contact your Senators today.

If you want to tell your elected officials to turn off the spigot that funds the freeway industrial complex, we need your help.

TELL YOUR LEGISLATOR: OPPOSE HB 3055. NO MORE FREEWAY EXPANSIONS.

We need *you* to contact your State Senator and encourage them to vote NO on HB 3055 until the language for the freeway expansion slush funds are removed. Here’s how you can do that:

Step 1: Look Up Your Senator

If you don’t know your State Senator, use the handy State Capitol website to look up who represents you in Salem. The bill has already passed the Oregon House (kudos to Speaker Tina Kotek, Rep Brad Witt and Rep Wlnsvey Campos for opposing the bill!) but we can still kill it in the Senate.

Step 2: Send them an email!

You don’t have to write an essay, unless you want to. But if you’ve never written your legislator about an important bill, here’s some tips:

1. Who are ya? Include your full name, and make explicit that you live in their district and that you’re a constituent (if you feel comfortable, you can say which specific neighborhood you live in)
2. Be specific with the bill number: Make sure you mention the bill number you’re opposed to (in this case, HB 3055) in the email header as well as the first 1-3 sentences of your letter.
3. Personalize the letter! You don’t have to be a policy expert on the legislation to have an opinion; in fact, for the majority of the people writing in, personal stories and experiences are likely more important to share at this point. If you’re feeling climate anxiety as these wildfires pick up, be sure to mention you’d rather see legislative commitment to greening our transportation system! If you’re furious about ODOT’s abdicated responsibility on the orphan highways, demand that they push for the slush fund money to go towards fixing up 82nd Avenue, TV Highway, Barbur, and McLoughlin and other dangerous roads before we widen other streets. If you are a transportation geek and want to see more money for road maintenance, bike paths, better transit service, high speed rail, commuter rail – share your story! This is our chance to show legislators that every day Oregonians are eager to see leadership on chipping away at the freeway industrial complex – the grey old deal – and investing in a more equitable, sustainable future.
   
   EXAMPLES
   • I am writing you to ask you to vote against HB 3055; climate leaders don’t widen freeways, and I’m concerned this bill gives ODOT a blank check to widen freeways in clackamas county when we instead need to be building a low-carbon transportation system running off of transit, biking and walking.
   • Please vote no on HB 3055 – there isn’t a single freeway expansion anywhere in North America that has ever solved traffic congestion, and ODOT’s proposals to spend hundreds of millions on the I-5 Boone Bridge and I-205 Oregon City project are robbing us of the opportunity to invest in better transportation systems that actually address congestion. We don’t know what commuting patterns we will have post-pandemic, and we certainly don’t need to throw away hundreds of millions of bucks on infrastructure that has never solved congestion.
   • I don’t believe ODOT should be trusted with the hundreds of millions of dollars in Bond funding that would be allowed until HB 3055. Why should current and future generations be on the hook to pay for these massive freeway expansions that don’t serve their needs and are actively frying the planet that they stand to inherit? Please direct ODOT to spend toll-revenue on fixing up orphan highways, which frequently maim and kill Oregonians biking, walking and driving on these dangerous arterials.
   • The state is literally on fire right now – we should probably stop giving ODOT blank checks to widen freeways. Please listen to Sunrise PDX and No More Freeways and vote no on HB 3055 until the ODOT freeway widening slush fund is removed from the omnibus bill.

4. If you don’t mind, feel free to BCC us – we love seeing the letters that you send in! (info at no more freeways pdx dot com)

Click here to submit testimony!

House Bill 3065 is a bad bill that would dramatically hurt our ability to solve traffic congestion, reduce carbon emissions, and rob us of money we need for other urgent transportation priorities across the state of Oregon. The crappy legislation, pushed by Speaker Tina Kotek, received a chilly reception in March (OPB has a great run-down of the previous meeting), and this weekend we learned that the bill has new amendments that will be getting a hearing in front of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation this Tuesday morning at 8am. We need your help pushing back against letting Speaker Kotek give ODOT a mammoth, unaccountable freeway expansion slush fund we’ll pay for for decades.

About the bill:

The -8 Amendments of House Bill 3065 aims to institute a large tolling program that ODOT would spend the next couple decades bonding against to build billions of dollars of freeway expansions at the Rose Quarter, the Abernethy Freeway Expansion in Oregon City, and the Boone Bridge Freeway Expansion near Wilsonville. Future generations will be paying off the debts of these massive expansions for decades, as well as paying for the project with worse air pollution and higher carbon emissions, all for a couple of additional lanes of freeway that won’t fix congestion. While there are a few technical improvements on the -8 Amendment language that wasn’t present in the -5 Amendemtn introduced two months ago, the fundamental crux of the bill remains abysmal – ODOT is broke, and instead of raising revenue to build infrastructure to prepare for climate change, to manage traffic congestion, to reduce air pollution or address the dozens of yearly traffic fatalities on ODOT’s roads – ODOT just wants billions for more freeways that solve none of these problems and actively make them worse.

Click here to submit testimony!

Why we’re opposed to HB 3065:

While there are a few minor improvements in policy language in this -8 Amendment over the -5 Amendments introduced in March, we categorically reject that there is any sane or rational reason to move forward with spending billions of dollars on freeway expansions in the region in 2021, and any legislator supporting this bill needs to reckon with the legacy of a warmer planet, unsafe streets, air pollution, and lack of accessible public transportation they are leaving for future generations by supporting this bill.

We need faster commutes, not freeway congestion – There isn’t a single freeway expansion anywhere in North America that has solved traffic congestion by adding additional lanes. Thanks to the well-understood concept of induced demand, we now know that all three of these freeway widening projects will not get trucks or commuters out of a traffic jam – it’ll merely make them miserable during years of road construction only to have the roads fill up with traffic the day that new lanes are opened. No More Freeways has also repeatedly caught ODOT blatantly lying about the traffic projections included in the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion – hell, they lied so bad in the traffic projections that we sued them over it. No one voting for this bill should be under the impression this will provide any long term solution to traffic congestion. The only way to reduce traffic congestion is to implement congestion pricing; unfortunately, ODOT is not pursuing congestion pricing (which works to minimize traffic jams) and instead pursuing tolling (which works to maximize revenue raised, a mechanism they need to raise the money for these massively oversized expansion projects).

Click here to submit testimony!

It’s a blank check for fossil fuel infrastructure – 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation. Even under the rosiest of predictions for vehicle electrification, Oregonians simply must reduce the number of miles they drive as the state grows if we want to have a shot of hitting our emission reduction targets. We need to use the roads we already have better, not add more – and we instead need to be investing in public transportation, walkable communities, high speed rail, intercity buses, and maintaining existing roads.

Click here to submit testimony!

Have you been paying attention to ODOT lately? It’s been a rough month for the Oregon Department of Transportation. Between the outcry on the traffic fatalities on 82nd Avenue, the horrific images of clearcutting wildfire lands in the Cascades, and their continued tomfoolery with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion (more on that below) – why do a bunch of legislators trust this agency with billions of dollars of freeway projects that aren’t anywhere close to shovel-ready? There’s undeniably massive cost overruns, slights-of-hands, overpromising and under-delivering ahead for ODOT on these mega projects. The agency is fundamentally incapable of transparency, accountability, or pushing policy that meets any conservation, equity, or mobility goals other than handing out massive construction contracts to asphalt, automobile, oil, and freight lobbyists. ODOT has so many other priorities in need of desperate funding – why should we give them a slush fund for more freeways?

Click here to submit testimony!

Rose Quarter project is imperiled – why is Speaker Kotek dumping more money into it? Anyone who has followed No More Freeways in the past couple years knows about the utter shitshow this proposed expansion has been (you can read our March 2021 letter to legislators about the Rose Quarter). The continued cost escalations, the public records showing ODOT was lying about the width of the freeway, the hidden plans to move the freeway even closer to Harriet Tubman Middle School, the community leaders who walked away from the project in protest of ODOT’s abysmal community outreach last summer… it goes on and on. The Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is an absolute disaster currently facing two lawsuits and continued skepticism from a litany of youth climate activists, transportation and racial justice advocates, and public health leaders pushing for a full Environmental Impact Statement. Given the headlines over the past couple years, why on earth would any legislator want to write ODOT a blank check to continue squandering money on this project?

Click here to submit testimony!

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN SUBMIT TESTIMONY:

House Bill 3065 and the -8 Amendment are getting a hearing in front of the Joint Committee on Transportation on Tuesday, May 10 at 8am. You can write to the Joint Committee on Transportation in opposition to the bill – feel free to use any of our talking points above, or share why you want to see the Oregon Legislature fund sidewalks, crosswalks, high speed rail, bike lanes, frequent bus service, electrified buses, charging stations for automobiles, intercity bus service, or basic road maintenance ahead of committing future generations to paying for these ghastly freeway expansions that are nothing short of climate arson. Share your personal story – are you worried about climate change? Angry that ODOT doesn’t have any money to fix 82nd Avenue or TV Highway because they dump it all on freeways? Concerned about air pollution near Harriet Tubman Middle School? Share your story, and make sure the elected officials hear from you on why it’s their duty and responsibility to push back on ODOT and the freeway industrial complex.

HERE’S THE LINK TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY ON HB 3065

You’re welcome to join No More Freeways, Sunrise PDX, and a handful of other transportation justice advocate in providing oral testimony on Tuesday morning as well. Information on how to do so is here.

You can also watch the live stream of the Tuesday morning testimony here.

Written testimony due to the Oregon Legislature by 8am on Wednesday, May 12. We encourage you to also email your testimony to your legislator as well.

Click here to submit testimony!

We’re staying busy over here at No More Freeways. Just a few weeks after our first lawsuit with Neighbors for Clean Air and the Eliot Neighborhood Association, No More Freeways filed our second lawsuit challenging ODOT’s $800 million freeway expansion in the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. You can read the full complaint here.

That’s two lawsuits filed in one month for our scrappy, all-volunteer, grassroots campaign.

#TubmanRally a big success

Thanks to all who came out to our #TubmanRally this month! We had roughly 200 people at the event, and some absolutely fantastic speakers. We wrote over 350 postcards to Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Kate Brown, Speaker Tina Kotek, and Transportation Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty asking them to keep fighting ODOT and holding the agency accountable for the air pollution, carbon emissions and traffic congestion that this project would mean to our community, the Tubman campus, and the planet as a whole.

Check out BikePortland’s coverage of our rally.

Teenage Climate Justice Leaders launch biweekly ODOT strikE

The teen caucus of Sunrise PDX held their first sit-in outside ODOT’s headquarters this last week. They’ll be revisiting ODOT’s headquarters every other week protesting the agency’s inaction on transportation and climate justice. Go follow the Youth vs ODOT instagram account to see more photos from their event, to read their four demands of ODOT (including the appointment of a Youth Climate Justice representative on the OTC) and to learn more about their next event.

Join us outside of ODOT’s downtown headquarters on Wednesday, May 12.

OPB story on freeway in Tubman’s backyard

For years, community members and staff with Portland Public Schools have been demanding more information about the impacts of the proposed freeway expansion on the Harriet Tubman Middle School campus. ODOT has been reluctant to share any information with any of us; fortunately, through a series of public records requests, we got copies of documents ODOT produced as early as 2018 showing exactly how much land in the backyard of Tubman Middle School they intend to take for this freeway.

OPB did a story highlighting these findings, and getting quotes from PPS Board Members and us about the importance of these maps. After years of stalling to share any information with the public, these maps getting into the hands of journalists must have started ODOT, because suddenly the agency announced this last week willing to explore expanding the freeway to the west, farther away from the school. Even if ODOT dramatically changes their plans, any widening will still increase air pollution in the backyard of Tubman Middle School, which already has some of the worst air pollution in the state.

This information only came to light because of our public records requests. This is just one month after we caught ODOT lying about the width of the proposed freeway. How many other dirty secrets about this project is this agency continuing to hide from the public?

Pedestrian Safety Rally on 82nd Avenue on Friday

Why does ODOT have billions for freeway expansions but can’t find the money to make basic safety investments for their orphan highways? (The agency cries poverty when challenged on this.)

This month, two people were hit by cars and killed while attempting to cross 82nd Avenue near NE Alberta. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been a single traffic fatality on the Rose Quarter freeway expansion in over a decade.

Community leaders including Rep Khanh Pham, Scott Kocher, Oregon Walks, and others are hosting a rally on 82nd Avenue this Friday, May 7th at 4pm to demand ODOT be held accountable to prioritizing safety investments here and across the region.

NMF to present on panel with national leaders May 18

No More Freeways was recently flattered to receive an invitation to speak on a panel hosted by Move Minneapolis discussing the future of the urban interstate. Check out this lineup!

Keith Baker, Managing Director, Reconnect Rondo
Oni Blair, Executive Director, LINK Houston
Dr Karilynn Crockett, Author, Professor MIT
Dr Ben Crowther, Program Manager, Congress for New Urbanism
Ian Lockwood, PE, Toole Design
Beth Osborne, Director, Transportation for America
Dr Regan Patterson, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
Aaron Brown, No More Freeways

You can register for Move Minneapolis’ 2021 Transportation Summit here.

Final note from Aaron – donate to keep us going!

Two lawsuits, two rallies (and a third we’re joining this week), breaking news about ODOT’s lack of transparency – as you can see, it’s been an awfully busy month. And honestly, this lengthy e-blast still doesn’t include numerous other things we’ve done over the last month to heckle ODOT, including testifying to multiple committees about the Columbia River Crossing 2.0, call out ODOT for hiding public comments concerned about air pollution outside Tubman Middle School, or other shenanigans involving pushing back on the legislature’s ongoing thirst for more freeways.

We’re so grateful for your continued support. While ODOT continues to churn forward with this project, our movement to challenge the freeway industrial complex has perhaps never been larger. Whether critiquing the agency on their abysmal climate outcomes, their unwillingness to prioritize funding basic traffic safety investments, or their deception about the air pollution they intend to pump into the lungs of current and future residents of the Albina neighborhood, we are spearheading an increasingly broad and diverse coalition of everyday Portlanders who are beginning to take their pitchforks to ODOT and demand accountability and transparency.

We’re all volunteers over here at NMF. This grassroots campaign is funded by a couple big donations and an awful lot of small donations. Whether you’ve got $5000, $500, $50, or $15 to chip in for a healthier, greener future, we’re eager to mail you a button and/or sticker and help us build our warchest for a busy summer of continuing to dismantle the freeway industrial complex.

No More Freeways, Neighbors for Clean Air, Eliot Neighborhood Association file Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion lawsuit

Community advocates opposed to the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT’s) proposed $800 million freeway expansion into the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School today announced that they have filed a lawsuit against the project. The plaintiff’s complaint uses various laws including the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to try to force ODOT to prep a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to study alternatives to adding more lanes to Interstate 5. Public health advocacy organization Neighbors for Clean Air and the Eliot Neighborhood Association joined the grassroots community group No More Freeways as plaintiffs against the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which approved ODOT’s proposed  Environmental Assessment (EA) last fall. 

“Today is a historic day for anyone who believes that ODOT should be held to basic standards of community accountability and transparency,” said Aaron Brown, an organizer with No More Freeways. “ODOT has continued to blatantly hide and misrepresent their intentions with this proposed $800 million expansion in the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. The public has every right to know the impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have on our neighborhood streets, on the lungs of our children, and the planet they stand to inherit. This lawsuit is our mechanism to try to force ODOT to answer to the community’s concerns.”

“Transportation infrastructure projects like the original I-5 freeway have created an environmental justice catastrophe for the surrounding Albina neighborhood,” said Mary Peveto, Executive Director for Neighbors for Clean Air. “Now, instead learning from the past and putting community voices at the center of decision-making, ODOT is not only planning an expansion based on flawed analysis, but looks to build it right at the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School, an historic and majority non-white institution that already has some of the worst air pollution in the state. We’re eager to join this legal action to hold this agency accountable for the air pollution they are clearly intending to add to this already polluted neighborhood.”

“The Eliot Neighborhood Association has been fighting ODOT’s proposed freeway expansion for over a decade. We’re eager to support alternatives to freeway expansion that address the needs for restorative justice in this neighborhood,” said Allan Rudwick, co-Chair of the Eliot Neighborhood Association. “We shouldn’t spend a single dollar increasing pollution or prioritizing cars in a time of climate emergency. If close to a billion dollars is going to be spent in the area, we need to get immense returns on that investment. This project is already hindering development of the many vacant and under-utilized parcels in the area. If built, it would disrupt local traffic for several years and increase air pollution in our area for years to come.”

Two years ago, ODOT published a draft Environmental Assessment for the proposed freeway expansion that was loudly derided by community groups. The agency hid numerous crucial documents from the public in their EA, including basic details about the width of the proposed freeway and the impacts to the air pollution at Tubman Middle School. 

No More Freeways’ independent analysis of ODOT’s traffic projections found multiple egregious errors and outdated assumptions that were used to try to prop up ODOT’s dubious assertions that this freeway expansion would be the first in North American history to reduce congestion, air pollution or carbon emissions. Dozens of local elected officials and community leaders issued statements demanding ODOT conduct a full EIS for the proposed expansion, with over 91% of the thousands of comments submitted to ODOT expressing opposition to the project. Community groups demanding a full EIS in 2019 included Audubon Society of Portland, OPAL – Environmental Justice Oregon, Oregon Walks, and Business for a Better Portland. 

Despite this outcry, last fall the federal government granted a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) to ODOT for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. This week’s NEPA lawsuit challenges the federal government’s FONSI’s findings, arguing it violates NEPA. The lawsuit asserts that ODOT must conduct a full EIS, rather than a more truncated or shorthand EA, and that ODOT must fully evaluate alternatives to freeway expansion that will address traffic congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions. 

Last week, No More Freeways sent a letter to Secretary Pete Buttigieg, detailing findings first published in Willamette Week last month about how ODOT has deliberately hidden from the public the width of the proposed freeway. No More Freeways believes this evidence is sufficient to require that the federal government withdraw their FONSI finding for ODOT’s expansion.   

Plaintiffs in the case are represented by attorneys Sean Malone, the Law Office of Karl G. Anuta, and Oxbow Law Group’s Mike Sargetakis and Doug Hageman.

The full complaint can be accessed here. 

Wanna celebrate our lawsuit? Join us for our rally at Tubman on Friday.

No More Freeways, Sunrise Movement PDX and students from the Harriet Tubman Middle School community will be hosting a rally at Tubman MIddle School on the evening of Friday, April 9th. Confirmed speakers include former students from Harriet Tubman Middle School and advocates representing Oregon Walks, Sunrise PDX, Neighbors for Clean Air, and No More Freeways. The full roster of speakers will be announced later this week; check out the No More Freeways website for more information. 

This event will be held outdoors; masks will be required, and we will practice social distancing.

Our rally will also be livestreamed for people who wish to join us at the rally virtually; we have tentatively confirmed ASL translation will be available.

Friday, April 9, 5-7pm

Meet at the entrance of Harriet Tubman Middle School (2231 N Flint Ave)

Learn more on our rally website.