I-5 Rose Quarter (Portland) Widening Project

[Plutonic Panda]

The governor has thrown her support behind this project. Let's break ground already!

https://katu.com/news/local/gov-brown-voices-support-for-odots-rose-quarter-freeway-expansion

[Plutonic Panda]

Here's a link to the official project website: https://www.i5rosequarter.org/

Latest update as a of July 2021:

Design work for the project continues and the independent highway cover concluded in July 2021. Last spring, a design package was produced that includes comments from project partners and community input from the Environmental Assessment. This design update will inform the work of the construction team and support a collaborative approach to addressing design issues, challenges and opportunities moving forward.

According to FAQ on their website this is the construction schedule:

When will construction start, how long will it take, and how will construction impact traffic?
Some components of construction are anticipated to start in 2022, with the main construction components anticipated to start in late 2023 or early 2024. Construction will last about 4 to 5 years. ODOT will work closely with businesses in the project area to implement strategies to limit disruption to businesses during construction, including maintaining event access to the Moda Center. ODOT will also develop a comprehensive transportation management plan to document construction staging and schedule, detours or alternate routes for all modes of travel during road and lane closures, as well as transportation management and operation strategies.

[Plutonic Panda]

Update:

https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2021/09/transportation-commission-set-to-adopt-freeway-cap-compromise.html

[Plutonic Panda]

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/09/oregon-transportation-commission-interstate-5-rose-quarter-project/

[Sub-Urbanite]

Hot mess / poison pill from ODOT. Who knows where this goes now. Seems like most likely destination is a mothballing with another 10 years before the topic comes up again.

[Plutonic Panda]

Well I gather from this article it's moving forward as ODOT seems to believe they can find it. They have to prove it by December 1st(2021). Cost estimates are now around 1.2 billion up from 500 million. They'd be wise to just get the damned thing going.

https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/otc-advances-i-5-rose-quarter-improvement-project/53860

[compdude787]

1.2 billion for about a mile of road. Wow!! 

[The Ghostbuster]

Why do I have the feeling this proposal will meet the same fate as the proposal to replace the Columbia River Crossing?

[Plutonic Panda]

Is that completely dead? I thought it was moving forward but very slowly amid disagreements with the light rail aspect of it.

[Bruce]

Is that completely dead? I thought it was moving forward but very slowly amid disagreements with the light rail aspect of it.

It was completely called off in 2014 because Oregon wouldn't have been able to fund the whole thing itself. The two states restarted planning in 2019, with hopes of reusing the existing money granted from the feds that has a 2029 repayment deadline.

The light rail section isn't the big hangup, it's just the sheer cost and size of the whole thing. The original plan had a dozen lanes in downtown Vancouver, which isn't going to fly anymore.

[Plutonic Panda]

Is that completely dead? I thought it was moving forward but very slowly amid disagreements with the light rail aspect of it.

It was completely called off in 2014 because Oregon wouldn't have been able to fund the whole thing itself. The two states restarted planning in 2019, with hopes of reusing the existing money granted from the feds that has a 2029 repayment deadline.

The light rail section isn't the big hangup, it's just the sheer cost and size of the whole thing. The original plan had a dozen lanes in downtown Vancouver, which isn't going to fly anymore.

I really don't see 12 lanes as that big of an issue for such a high priority freight corridor. Unless I'm mistaken I recall many articles pointing to the rail aspect as being controversial. I even seem to recall Portland's metro getting jurisdiction if the rail is built which also ruffled some feathers. Please correct me where I'm wrong as this isn't my area(I still haven't been north of I-80 yet) so it falls behind other priorities in my memory lol. I do seem to recall we have had this discussion somewhere before where someone mentioned the whole Metro jurisdiction thing but I can't remember.

If this really is simply an issue about cost and nothing more that's even worse, IMO. So what's the alternative? Do nothing until it ends up like I-40 in Memphis being shutdown until a patch job can be done? That's all America is capable of doing? The west coast isn't a poor area of the country, we should be able to do better on its main spine which is I-5. I guess if the state(s) don't want to stomach the opposition it could be easier to just wait until they justifiably shut it down to traffic and see if that changes anyone's mind as most people don't always cherish what they until it's gone.

Hopefully the new infrastructure bills pass and make this project more feasible. I had no idea it was at an impasse. What is ODOT doing big these days other than the Rose Quarter project if this isn't going anywhere besides wanting to convert free roads into toll roads?

[Bruce]

The light rail opposition is from the last bridge attempt. Vancouver proper has a different political landscape now and is thankfully ready to develop around transit, and Clark County is split but could be convinced.

A smaller-scale replacement on top of tolling both crossings and redirecting freight to I-205 could be enough if there's a separate light rail crossing. A congestion toll would work wonders for their traffic.

Oregon places a high priority on the Interstate Bridge Replacement, but Washington has a lot of other needs that we're throwing money at (finishing the SR 520 program, rebuilding Snoqualmie Pass, widening I-405, extending SR 509 and SR 167, ferry replacements, preparing for our own I-5 rebuild in the coming years...and this is all in the Seattle area).

[Plutonic Panda]

As I said, I wonder if there is any hope with the new infrastructure package. Maybe that can lend a ray of light. Curious what you think the I-5 rebuild could be? Any additional lanes? TBM work?

[jakeroot]

As I said, I wonder if there is any hope with the new infrastructure package. Maybe that can lend a ray of light. Curious what you think the I-5 rebuild could be? Any additional lanes? TBM work?

I believe that federal funding has been identified, both before and now, as essential to getting the project built.

A smaller-scale replacement on top of tolling both crossings and redirecting freight to I-205 could be enough if there's a separate light rail crossing. A congestion toll would work wonders for their traffic.

I would think a non-tolled crossing would be quite viable with enough federal funding.

[Thunderbyrd316]

   I could have sworn I have said this before in relation specifically to this project (I-5 Rose Quarter) but I have just scrolled through all of the responses and do not see my name on any of them. It is my opinion that this project is totally inadequate and is being set up by the anti-freeway crowd to "prove" that it is not possible to "build your way out of congestion". I have opposed this project from the beginning for that very reason. When completed congestion will be as bad or worse than it is now and the anti-freeway people will have their "proof".

   Yes, a modern Interstate 5 through the Portland metro area is desperately needed but the political will to construct what needs to be constructed simply does not exist. (And this is in addition to the needs of other freeways, both new routes and fully reconstructed existing routes, around the PDX metro area.)

   Yes, the cost to construct what is actually needed will be high but the cost of doing nothing will be far worse. I have watched Portland transform from a metro area with a few bad traffic spots to a commuters nightmare over the past 30 years. It will take at least that long to fix it and there are no signs that anyone even wants to begin to try. I would happily pay an extra $1 per gallon in gas taxes if the money actually went into new meaningful freeway construction.

[Plutonic Panda]

The thing about is this road needs to be 7-8 lanes each way. 5 free lanes with 2-3 toll lanes each way. Elevate it, tunnel it, do a hybrid. But that won't happen even Texas removed that option for I-35 in Austin and now it's coming under fire left and right. At the very least it seems with 3 lanes each way it will be modernized and have shoulders as well as improving the road network above.

Yeah the anti car crowd will use it as an example when it doesn't solve congestion but what group or leader will come out and counter that ridiculousness? We need better politicians and DOTs that will campaign against the anti car crowd and present arguments against theirs. I rarely if ever see that.

[Bickendan]

I'd sooner have the I-5/405 loop turned into a giant traffic circle than have the Eastbank turned into a 14 or 16 lane monstrosity.
Given the space constraints weaving between the Covention Center, Rose Quarter, and Tubman Middle School), it'd be a miracle and a half if there were any decent way to build the Eastbank Freeway to an eight lane cross section, and given that N Minnesota Ave and the Portland section of the Baldock Freeway are both six laners, building the Eastbank wider than that makes no sense, especially with the Stadium Freeway acting as an alternate route and most of the traffic on the Rose Quarter segment accessing the Banfield and not headed to/from the Marquam Bridge.

[Bruce]

The FHWA has revoked their FONSI, so a new environmental assessment has to be made.

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/01/19/feds-direct-odot-to-complete-new-environmental-assessment-for-i-5-rose-quarter-project/

For reference, the last approved plan is Hybrid 3:

[kernals12]

The FHWA has revoked their FONSI, so a new environmental assessment has to be made.

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/01/19/feds-direct-odot-to-complete-new-environmental-assessment-for-i-5-rose-quarter-project/

For reference, the last approved plan is Hybrid 3:

Surely ODOT can challenge this in court

[The Ghostbuster]

Maybe the 4-lane segments of Interstate 5 in the Portland-area should have been 6 lanes from the time the freeway was first constructed. Freeways with 4 lanes within an urban area such as Portland seems to be too little capacity to me, unless the freeway is a spur route.

[kernals12]

Maybe the 4-lane segments of Interstate 5 in the Portland-area should have been 6 lanes from the time the freeway was first constructed. Freeways with 4 lanes within an urban area such as Portland seems to be too little capacity to me, unless the freeway is a spur route.

In most cities, a freeway like this would have 8 lanes.

[Sub-Urbanite]

Maybe the 4-lane segments of Interstate 5 in the Portland-area should have been 6 lanes from the time the freeway was first constructed. Freeways with 4 lanes within an urban area such as Portland seems to be too little capacity to me, unless the freeway is a spur route.

In most cities, a freeway like this would have 8 lanes.

That's the amazing part about this debate. The climate warriors in Portland are like NO WE CAN'T HAVE ANY FREEWAY BEYOND 4 LANES OR THE PLANET WILL DIE but, you know, have they been anywhere else!?

[jakeroot]

It wouldn't matter if it was five lanes or one, it's that widening is being considered as part of the project.

[OCGuy81]

PBOT won't rest until Interstates 5 and 84 are bikes and buses only....

[Bickendan]

PBOT's not the nimby here in this instance.