Tldr – the project is still hosed.

What did the OTC approve this last week? 

The Oregon Transportation Commission voted last week to give ODOT permission to begin construction of “Phase 1A” of the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion – but in all actuality, Phase 1A involves construction of a handful of components largely unrelated to the expansion of the freeway that animates the concern of No More Freeways and our allies. Phase 1A includes unobjectionable investments in stormwater management and a seismic upgrade of a viaduct ramp, and both of these components are prudent and responsible infrastructure investments. While ODOT proposes adjusting some of the lane widths to accommodate an expansion of lanes that might induce further traffic, they are not structural changes and could easily be reversed by more environmentally responsible leadership at ODOT. 

Despite the irrelevance to the freeway widening, ODOT is eager to frame these smaller piecemeal investments as part of the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion.  The agency will publish breathless press releases during this month’s groundbreaking ceremony to demonstrate that there are literal “shovels in the ground” and that this entire freeway expansion is well underway, despite the reality that ODOT is short the nearly two billion dollars necessary to actually complete this project. The agency would like the public to believe their project doubling the width of I-5 through North Portland is “inevitable” even as it faces this gaping budget hole, multiple lawsuits, and competition over the years ahead from the rest of the state for scarce funding.

Once again, the OTC is allowing ODOT to kick the can down the road in violation of their duty to provide oversight of the state’s transportation department. The failure to engage in an honest reckoning about ODOT’s bungling of this project is disappointing on its own terms, but it is downright reckless and irresponsible in the context of the profound challenges that Oregon’s transportation system is currently facing.  The OTC is failing to acknowledge the multiple setbacks faced by this freeway expansion that should lead ODOT to sending the expansion back to the drawing board. 

With continued uncertainty from the federal government, Oregon’s leadership must step up to invest in the critical infrastructure that keeps our state moving. Decades of disinvestment in basic preservation and maintenance of roads and bridges as well as critically neglected safety improvements have left Oregon with a transportation system that is outdated, inefficient and downright dangerous. Years of the legislature prioritizing expansion of highway capacity over preservation of our existing system has led to ODOT facing significant layoffs, with cities and counties also enormously struggling to preserve our existing system. While ODOT demands continued billions for road projects, TriMet and most other transit agencies across the state are also gearing up for substantial layoffs and devastating service cuts, even with the anticipated influx of funding from a potential short session transportation bill. At a time in which expansion of public transit is a critical and invaluable investment that provides support for so many of our state’s overlapping challenges, Oregon’s policymakers are abdicating their responsibility to protect the hard-fought post-covid restoration in transit service and ridership while continuing to sign blank checks for the status quo expansion of freeways projects that don’t fix traffic congestion or make our roads any safer.

What happens next?

Yet even with this decision, the simple facts that render this project doomed remain. As multiple OTC Commissioners acknowledged last week, ODOT continues to lack the multiple billions of dollars necessary to build the actual freeway widening components of the Rose Quarter Expansion – and there’s no state or federal money on the horizon to fill this enormous budget gap. Furthermore, the multiple lawsuits filed by No More Freeways and our partners will be matriculating through the courts over the next year. Thanks to the financial support of our grassroots base, in the year ahead ODOT will be forced to answer to state and federal judges as to why the agency manipulated traffic projections, lied about air pollution impacts to Tubman Middle School, refused to study alternatives to freeway expansion, and claimed their project was in alignment with the city’s transportation goals.

The continued suggestions and efforts to redesign and replan the project point to the need for a new Purpose and Need statement and a full Environmental Impact Statement that studies a range of alternatives to manage traffic and improve the community in this area. No More Freeways and our partners remain steadfast in our belief that the investments in the highway covers would be cheaper and more successful in healing previous decades’ harm to the neighborhood if they were not coupled with expansion of a polluting freeway. ODOT should support community partners creating an affordable plan for a lids-not-lanes approach that the public has been advocating for since the 2010-12 planning process.

Continued economic uncertainty and inflation will only continue to raise the price tag of the project, and these price escalations will put greater pressure on ODOT to scale back or abandon  commitments to the neighborhood to fully fund the buildable caps and other positive components of the project. 

Thank you for your continued support

In less than eighteen hours, No More Freeways and our partners turned out nearly 100 emails and nearly a dozen pieces of oral testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission, for a meeting was rescheduled with little public notice. It’s only thanks to our dedicated volunteer base that we can continue to make sure that policymakers hear from the community voices who understand that advancing this two billion dollar blunder would be a disaster for Oregon’s budget, our neighborhood’s air quality, and our planet’s future. We look forward to the expected litigation and inevitable financial reckoning in the upcoming months that should force the agency to delay or entirely scrap these absurd plans. Spending billions of dollars to double the width of I-5 through the Eliot Neighborhood and Lloyd District when there are so many other pressing statewide needs for traffic safety and transit investments is fiscally and morally irresponsible. No More Freeways and our partners are optimistic that our continued organizing, education of policymakers and advancing litigation will instead lead towards a truly restorative investment in Albina that doesn’t pollute the neighborhood with dirty air and more traffic. 

Thank you so, so much for your continued support. We invite you to continue to imagine and invest in a future with no more freeways.

– No More Freeways, Families for Safe Streets, Eliot Neighborhood Association, BikeLoudPDX, and Neighbors for Clean Air

Today, the Metro Council voted 5-1-1 to give yet another greenlight to ODOT’s disastrous $1.9 billion proposal to expand the Rose Quarter freeway and double the width of I-5 through the Albina neighborhood. This vote is financially reckless – this proposed freeway expansion has suffered from gargantuan cost overruns at a time in which the Portland region and the State of Oregon are struggling to raise the significant revenue necessary just to maintain our existing roads, bridges and transit service.

We wish to thank Metro Councilors Mary Nolan and Duncan Hwang for their willingness to call attention that continued consideration of this proposed freeway expansion deeply jeopardizes our ability to find funding for every traffic safety, climate and public health related initiative in the state, and thank the two hundred people who contacted the Metro Council this month asking them to reject this amendment.  “I cannot move forward with supporting a project that commits money that is not currently contractually obligated to the project or to the region, while at the same time scolding castigating other governments who we partner with, most notably in housing and supportive services,” said Councilor Nolan during this morning’s hearing. ‘I won’t join a chorus that lectures other governments about how to be fiscally responsible, how not to bust their budgets, and then turn around and do exactly the same thing with this project.” Councilor Hwang abstained, citing similar concerns.

If ODOT begins construction, the Portland region will be on the hook for the inevitable cost escalations – the Rose Quarter now costs more than 4 times what ODOT said it would cost in 2017; the I-205 Abernethy Bridge has more than tripled in that same period of time.  ODOT will do anything, say anything, promise anything, to get the project started because they know we’ll have to pay whatever it takes to finish it.  This is cynical and wrong.

ODOT has done nothing to try to “right-size” the project to be less expensive.  The agency’s own consultants said the project could be 40 feet narrower, which would likely save hundreds of millions in construction costs–something ODOT opposes because it would prevent them from re-striping it as a ten-lane freeway once it was built.

At a moment in which New York City is showing congestion pricing works, Metro is turning its back on its commitment to require congestion pricing as part of this project.  Congestion pricing is assumed in the Regional Transportation Plan Metro just adopted, both as a way of paying for roads, and a way to reduce congestion–and meet the region’s greenhouse gas goals. With this vote, Metro is throwing that all out the window.  

We are heartened that although the new statutory language is insufficient to truly hold ODOT accountable, it represents an implicit acknowledgement that regional leaders are increasingly concerned with the numerous significant financial uncertainties of this proposed expansion. 

No More Freeways and our partners will continue to insist local and state lawmakers consider the significant legal and funding challenges ODOT faces before significant construction of the freeway expansion is scheduled to begin in 2027; we remain committed to stopping this megaproject from bankrupting the state and clogging North Portland with more traffic and air pollution.

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!

With today’s vote, ODOT and their rubber-stamping Oregon Transportation Commission continue to demonstrate they will beg, borrow and steal every possible dollar from Oregon’s other priorities to fund the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion.

Communities across the state are suffering from decades of deterioration in Oregon’s existing transportation system, leading to crumbling roads, vulnerable bridges, limited transit options and skyrocketing traffic fatalities.

Instead of focusing on these basic needs, ODOT continues to answer to freight and highway lobbyists demanding a blank check to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to double the width of I-5 and shove more asphalt, air pollution and traffic into the Albina neighborhood – and burden future generations with climate misery and decades of debt in the process.

That the Commission additionally voted to approve another $72 million increase for the Abernethy Bridge – a project whose cost has soared 228% in seven years – is further evidence state officials are unable or unwilling to hold ODOT accountable for reckless priorities and overspending.

No More Freeways and our multiple lawsuits continue to stand in their way. Who will stand with us?”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct 18, 2024

PORTLAND – ODOT staff announced on Thursday morning in a Transportation Work Group meeting that the US Department of Transportation had rejected Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT’s) request for $750 million from the federal INFRA Grant Program to spend towards the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, a project that would double the width of Interstate 5 through the Albina Neighborhood. 

ODOT was counting on this additional influx of federal money to advance the freeway expansion. The agency now faces a $900 million funding gap for the Rose Quarter Expansion Project, at a time in which ODOT is hemorrhaging dollars and legislators are grappling with how to find the revenue necessary to stabilize the agency’s $1.6 billion annual budget shortage. Legislators recently concluded a statewide “transportation roadshow” tour soliciting feedback from the public on desired priorities and investments in the upcoming 2025 package. According to the Move Oregon Forward coalition, comments received from the public overwhelmingly demanded greater investment in public transit, road maintenance and street safety improvements, with less than 5% of the comments received in support of megaprojects like the Rose Quarter and other highway construction.  

“Next year, the Oregon legislature will be facing a massive unpaid bill as our statewide transportation system is suffering from decades of disinvestment and neglect, with no easy answers on how to find the votes to raise the taxes to pay for it,” said Joe Cortright, an economist with City Observatory. “Without this federal grant, it’d be even more irresponsible for legislators to allocate an additional $900 million to pay for this polluting, bloated highway expansion when Oregon has alarmingly critical investment needs for statewide bridge repair, safety improvements and transit needs.”

“We continue to call on state legislators, Governor Tina Kotek and the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop a plan for a “right sized” Rose Quarter project that leads with investments that restore the livability of Albina, rather than needlessly doubling the size of the I-5 freeway,” said Chris Smith, a co-founder of No More Freeways.

Doug Allen, Portland Area Vice President of AORTA-Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates, said his organization had asked, years ago, that climate-friendly transit alternatives to this freeway expansion be considered in an Environmental Impact Statement. “Oregon needs to recognize that we can’t afford to spend $900 million on the Rose Quarter Expansion when that money could instead be improving transit and freight rail infrastructure across the state. That would be much more helpful to Oregon’s economy than subsidizing peak hour auto travel.”

Notably, this comes just months after the announcement in March that the federal government gave a $450 million grant from the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) program, the largest such grant given nationally, towards building caps over the freeway to heal the damage done to Albina, formerly Oregon’s largest Black neighborhood, by original construction of I-5 in the 1960s. This week’s decision shows that while the federal government supports repairing the damage done to Albina, it isn’t going to foot the bill for a massively widened freeway.  

While the grassroots organization is supportive of the freeway cap components of the project, over the past seven years No More Freeways has organized to oppose the freeway components of the proposed project. NMF had uncovered previously undisclosed documents showing that ODOT’s plan is to double the width of the roadway in some sections, allowing for future lane expansions–decisions that are driving the high cost of the project, and causing its price tag to spiral out of control, quadrupling to $1.9 billion. These and other findings have led to significant community opposition, with thousands of Portlanders demanding ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement, dozens of youth climate advocate-led protests outside ODOT, and multiple lawsuits.  Most recently, this summer No More Freeways joined five other co-plaintiffs in filing a NEPA complaint against ODOT, contending that the agency failed to study alternatives to freeway expansion and therefore violated federal environmental law. No More Freeways also wrote a letter to the USDOT in July expressing concerns about this project receiving federal INFRA grant funding. National advocacy organization America Walks also sent a letter co-signed by 155 organizations across the country urging USDOT to not grant INFRA funding to projects that align with the principles of the Reconnecting Communities program.

“It’s time for ODOT to get the message and design a project that is focused on re-connecting the community, rather than widening the highway,” said Smith.

KGW Coverage

OPB Story

PORTLAND – Six community advocacy organizations have filed a second lawsuit to stop the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) $1.9 billion proposal to double the width of Interstate 5, a road expansion that would tarnish existing community plans to rebuild and heal North Portland’s historic Albina neighborhood.

“This lawsuit is our community’s opportunity to prevent ODOT from shoving all the air pollution and traffic that an expanded freeway brings through the recovering Albina neighborhood,” said Chris Smith, co-founder of No More Freeways.

No More Freeways, Neighbors for Clean Air, Association of Oregon Rail Transit Advocates (AORTA), Oregon Families for Safe Streets and BikeLoudPDX are co-plaintiffs alleging that ODOT violated federal environmental standards as established through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). ODOT’s proposed freeway widening would double the width of the existing Interstate 5, which currently runs through the Albina neighborhood and in the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. The NEPA lawsuit asserts ODOT has refused to study cost-effective alternatives to freeway expansion and that the agency must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that more accurately analyzes the climate and air pollution impacts of the proposed freeway widening. 

“There is significant community opposition to the freeway expansion components of this project,” said Allan Rudwick, Chair of the Land Use Committee of the Eliot Neighborhood Association. “ODOT is pretending the overwhelming community enthusiasm and support for restorative investments in Albina and elsewhere in the neighborhood extends to their destructive proposal to fill our neighborhood with traffic and air pollution. Thousands of Portlanders have repeatedly demanded ODOT tell the truth about their plans to double the width of Interstate 5 and insist the agency study alternatives to widening I-5 into the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School’s campus. Every rendering from ODOT shows more lanes and more cars on local roads while on the bike and transit front they have fairly major disruption during the project and no benefits after it’s done.”

Community advocates are also concerned that the staggering price tag for this proposed freeway expansion will jeopardize the state’s ability to invest in the backlogged road maintenance and street safety needs of Oregon’s existing statewide system. ODOT has identified an annual $1.9 billion budget gap on the network of roads and bridges owned by the state, and Oregon has experienced a 70% increase in traffic fatalities since 2010 largely due to disinvestment in street safety.

“ODOT is broke, and the additional lanes of freeway that our lawsuit challenges are prohibitively expensive to build,” said Sarah Risser with Oregon Families for Safe Streets. “Our organization represents Oregonians who have lost loved ones to traffic violence, and we know that the surge in traffic fatalities is due in part to ODOT’s misplaced spending priorities. Given our current road fatality crisis, saving human lives should take precedence over vehicle throughput and State resources should be directed accordingly. I beg legislators to join us in pushing to right-size this bloated megaproject so we have the resources necessary to invest in safer streets across the entire state as part of the 2025 legislative package.”

According to Doug Allen, Portland Area Vice President of AORTA-Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates: “For years, our members have been asking for decent transit alternatives to the continued expansion of Portland area freeways, and for years we have been ignored. We simply can’t afford to waste more time and money on projects that encourage more motor vehicle travel.”

Co-plaintiffs joined community leaders last March in celebrating the $450 million issued by the federal government to build highway caps and safer streets over the existing interstate facility. USDOT’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) program made it’s single largest investment nationwide in Albina, bolstering enthusiasm for a proposal to build caps over the freeway to heal damages caused by I-5’s original construction through what was Oregon’s largest Black neighborhood. At a presentation to the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) earlier this month, ODOT officials proposed spending this grant funding on a proposal to dramatically expand the footprint of the I5 freeway, in direct contradiction to USDOT’s written directive to ODOT that explicitly stated these funds cannot be spent on expansion of highway capacity.

Recent actions taken by other levels of government have affirmed the legal and financial possibility of constructing highway covers to rebuild the Albina community without doubling the width of the freeway. Metro voted last month to officially decouple the funding received from the Reconnecting Communities program in a manner that makes it clear the freeway cap is a separate project from ODOT’s proposal to add more lanes. 

“Portland can absolutely move forward with capping this freeway without expanding it. The inspiring, community-led and federally-supported effort to heal the Albina neighborhood with generational investments in Black wealth creation shouldn’t be delayed or blemished by ODOT’s stubborn insistence in doubling the width of the freeway,” said Smith. “This community needs livable streets and housing, not air pollution and traffic, and we hope our lawsuit inspires legislators to join us in decoupling this righteous investment in neighborhood healing from ODOT’s cynical, opportunistic attempt to hide a doubling of the freeway footprint.”

“We hope this legal action spurs policymakers to join us in recognizing the divergence of these two separate projects, and encourages them to double down on healing the neighborhood instead of paving it over,” said Rudwick.

This lawsuit mirrors litigation undertaken by similar grassroots-led community efforts to oppose freeway expansion across the country, including in Austin, Tex., Hoboken, N.J., and Davis, Calif. Over two hundred organizations have endorsed America Walks’ “Communities Over Highways” campaign launched this February, calling on state and national policymakers to prioritize investments in road maintenance, street safety, and transit improvements instead of endless freeway expansion.

This NEPA lawsuit is the second active complaint leveled against ODOT; last May, five community organizations alleged ODOT’s freeway expansion proposal failed to comply with existing, formally adopted plans, including the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan and Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan. The complaint cites numerous specific details of the proposed expansion that are demonstrably out of alignment with the city’s tentative approval of the expansion back in 2012. Last fall, No More Freeways also filed an administrative complaint against Metro, alleging their adoption of the Regional Transportation Plan was out of compliance with state mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

No More Freeways, Eliot Neighborhood Association and Neighbors for Clean Air filed a similar NEPA lawsuit against this project in 2021; the legal action was nullified after the federal government rescinded the FONSI for the original proposal in 2022.

Plaintiffs in the case are represented by the Law Office of Karl G. Anuta.

Full Complaint

PORTLAND – Five community advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Friday against the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) demanding a moratorium on the planning for the proposed $1.9 Billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. The lawsuit alleges that ODOT’s proposal fails to comply with the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan and Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan, citing numerous specific details of the proposed expansion that are demonstrably out of alignment with the city’s tentative approval of the expansion back in 2012. Most notably, community groups are concerned with ODOT’s proposal to double or triple the width of the roadway wide enough to include ten lanes of freeway, in direct contradiction of the city’s formally adopted climate, transportation and lane use plans. 

No More Freeways joined Neighbors for Clean Air, Oregon and SW Washington Families for Safe Streets, BikeLoudPDX, and the Eliot Neighborhood Association as litigants in the complaint. 

“It’s absurd for ODOT to claim that their proposed $1.9 billion 10-lane highway is in compliance with the city’s existing plans for climate action, sustainable transportation investment or neighborhood development,” said Chris Smith, a spokesperson for No More Freeways. “We filed this lawsuit because state law requires ODOT to follow the city’s clean air and climate goals. ODOT shouldn’t be allowed to advance a project that brazenly violates the city’s adopted plans.”

“For generations, ODOT has been prioritizing moving car traffic through the Eliot Neighborhood instead of protecting the health and well-being of local residents,” said Allan Rudwick, the Chair of the Eliot Neighborhood Association’s Land Use and Transportation Committee. “Recently, we have seen several new residential construction projects between I-5 and the Willamette River for the first time in nearly a century. The Eliot Neighborhood needs more homes, not more highways. Routing lots of extra traffic onto our roads may put a damper on this revitalization for another century and we continue to oppose ODOT’s road-widening project.”

“Make no mistake – ODOT’s plans to dramatically widen I-5 would significantly pollute the air in the Albina neighborhood and actively harm the health and well being of North Portland residents,” said Nakisha Nathan, co-executive director with Neighbors for Clean Air. “We are joining this litigation as local advocates for clean air and healthy communities who know that ODOT needs to prioritize transportation improvements that support investments in the Albina neighborhood, which has already suffered enough from reckless, polluting expansions like this one.”

“ODOT has continued to prioritize investment in endless freeway expansion instead of targeting improvements to streets like North Lombard, where my son was killed,” said Michelle DuBarry, whose 22-month-old son was struck by a driver in a crosswalk in 2010. “Traffic fatalities in Oregon are up 70% since 2010, and as an advocacy organization comprised of Oregonians who have been injured or lost loved ones to traffic violence, we’re proud to stand with community partners in demanding ODOT be held accountable and forced to reconsider this mindless expansion.”

“We’ve asked for years for basic investments in safety on the state roads that kill Portlanders every year,” said David Binnig, a spokesperson with BikeLoudPDX. “Instead of honoring its responsibility to keep all road users safe, ODOT is intent on pouring billions of dollars into freeway widening projects. We hope this lawsuit will force the agency to consider investments that better meet our city’s most urgent needs.”

Since 2017, No More Freeways has continued to demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion that considers alternatives to expansion. Seven years later, after numerous cost escalations, design flaws, legal initiatives, multiple advisory committees, over $110m of ODOT spending and literal thousands of public comments from the public, we continue to call attention to this project in hopes that state and federal leadership will direct ODOT to pursue more cost-effective alternatives that do not include additional expansion of freeway capacity. 

This is the third lawsuit filed against ODOT regarding the proposed $1.9 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. In 2021, No More Freeways joined Neighbors for Clean Air and the Eliot NA in filing a complaint that ODOT had not fully considered alternatives to expansion in line with federal standards dictated by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). No More Freeways also filed a lawsuit against ODOT contending a lack of compliance with Portland’s Comprehensive Plan. Both lawsuits were voluntarily dismissed in 2022 after FHWA withdrew their approval of the project. With federal approval of the modified project regranted this past spring, No More Freeways has resubmitted this complaint, again challenging ODOT’s assertion this project is in line with Portland’s comprehensive plan. 

As stated in March, No More Freeways remains a vocal champion of remediating the Albina neighborhood with an investment in freeway caps. The opportunity to heal the injustice inflicted into this neighborhood must not be paired with ODOT’s attempt to further harm this community with greater air pollution, freeway traffic and carbon emissions. The organization continues to demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that considers alternatives to build these caps and remediate the neighborhood without the additional freeway lanes and attendant negative consequences.

Plaintiffs in the case are represented by the Law Office of Karl G. Anuta.

The full complaint is available here.

No More Freeways is excited to be speaking at an upcoming event on the intersection of climate and transportation policy – and we hope you’ll join us.

No More Freeways’ co-founder Chris Smith with be on a panel with OPAL Environmental Justice’s Abby Griffith, Verde’s Indi Namkoong, State Representative Khanh Pham, moderated by BikePortland’s Jonathan Maus. The Rumble on the River series is held by a coalition of environmental organizations and we’re flatted to be invited to speak at this event.

We’ll be talking about the need to move beyond electric vehicles to hit our carbon emission reduction goals, why No More Freeways is fighting the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, and how we can organize to build power for the upcoming 2025 legislative session which is expected to have a robust conversation on transportation investments.

Hope to see you there!

Thursday, May 2nd
St Andrew Catholic Church 806 NE Alberta St
Portland OR 97211
Doors at 5:30, panel at 6:30

Don’t panic – we’ve been here before. 

This week, the 2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the proposed $2 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion received a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) declaration from the federal government. ODOT previously received a FONSI on the 2019 Environmental Assessment for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, which No More Freeways, the Eliot Neighborhood Association and Neighbors for Clean Air challenged via a NEPA lawsuit in 2021. Our lawsuit raised numerous significant flaws with the proposal, including the demonstrably dubious traffic projections, the significant increase in air pollution, and the multiple additional lanes of freeway that ODOT proposed adding to the Albina neighborhood. After our complaint, the Federal Highway Administration in early 2022 withdrew their FONSI, forcing ODOT back to the drawing board. No More Freeways and our community partners submitted over 2000 comments and held an independent public hearing on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment at Harriet Tubman Middle School in January 2023, reiterating our opposition to the freeway expansion and demanding a full Environmental Impact Statement that explores alternatives to additional freeway lanes.

While ODOT has made numerous significant modifications to the proposed expansion since the 2019 FONSI, none of the design changes address any of the litany of concerns raised by our original complaint. The current design proposes adding even more lanes of freeway than the original 2019 proposal, and many features of the current proposal have been deliberately hidden from the public. Through public records requests, No More Freeways discovered numerous new significant design components added since the 2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment, none of which have undergone the basic standard public environmental review process. They were reviewed in secret meetings in direct violation of public meeting laws. It is astounding that the federal government asserts that the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, the largest public works project in Oregon history, will have no significant environmental impact to the community despite adding multiple additional lanes of freeway and attendant air pollution, traffic and carbon emissions to the neighborhood and the planet. Both the 2019 EA and 2022 SEA received thousands of comments from the public with overwhelming opposition to freeway components of the project and overwhelming support for investment in the caps.  Meanwhile, 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation, while the planet endures continued record temperatures and dangerously warming oceans. The proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is estimated to create an additional annual 21,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions through induced driving.

The Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion remains a deeply imperiled project. Even with the $450 million Reconnecting Communities grant announced last week, the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion currently has a $1-1.25 billion budget shortfall, as ODOT presented to the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation this past month,. Furthermore, Governor Tina Kotek’s announcement this week that ODOT will suspend their proposed tolling program significantly undercuts the funding mechanism ODOT intended to use to close this substantial gap. The original funding allocated in HB 2017 for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion has since been diverted to the Abernethy Bridge Expansion project, which has also undergone significant cost overruns. That bridge expansion, which is underway, has been funded by $385 million in short term borrowing to be repaid by tolls which have now evaporated.This is at the same moment that the state legislature ponders other large budget shortfalls in our transportation system, with over $3 billion of unmet maintenance, seismic and safety needs across Oregon, while revenue from the statewide gas tax, which is not indexed to inflation, continues to dwindle in purchasing power.

As stated on Monday, No More Freeways remains a vocal champion of remediating the Albina neighborhood with an investment in freeway caps. The opportunity to heal the injustice inflicted into this neighborhood must not be paired with ODOT’s attempt to further harm this community with greater air pollution, freeway traffic and carbon emissions. We continue to demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that considers alternatives to build these caps and remediate the neighborhood without the additional freeway lanes and attendant negative consequences.

No More Freeways is actively considering our options to fully respond to this development, as well as the impact that the death of a regional tolling program and the recently awarded Reconnecting Communities funding has to our efforts to kill this freeway expansion. It’s certainly been a busy week! Please stay tuned – in the meantime, you can support our efforts by joining the hundreds of Oregonians who have made a donation to our legal fund. Over the last seven years, the Oregon Department of Transportation has spent at least $110 million planning and greenwashing this freeway expansion. No More Freeways has spent approximately $110,000 over the same period. Whether you have $15,000, $1500, $150, $50 or $15 to give, every dollar makes a significant difference as we fundraise to challenge this disastrous piece of toxic, polluting fossil fuel infrastructure being thrust into our community.

Fighting freeways is a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re so grateful for all the help we’ve had along the way. Thank you for your continued support.