NO MORE FREEWAYS VS ODOT

Web Photo.

Portland, like all cities, has always existed in a state of constant change, and inevitably, some proposed changes are received by its residents better or worse than others.

Controversy over a proposed freeway expansion near downtown Portland helps to prove the point.

With hundreds of thousands of people commuting through and around the city every day, it is not an uncommon sentiment to feel there is a lot to be desired in terms of more efficient travel options.

Funded by the Oregon Department of Transportation’s “Keep Oregon Moving” legislation approved in 2017 (HB 2017), highway planners have begun to move forward with an expansion project focused on increasing Interstate 5’s transit capacity between the Banfield Freeway (I-84) and the Fremont Bridge approach, where I-5 already splits the Albina neighborhood in north Portland.

ODOT has made its intentions clear regarding the project, being to hopefully reduce congestion and roadway accidents, and one can assume the city expected at least mostly positive outcomes from the decision when it was made.

However, one local climate activism group seemingly could not disagree more.

No More Freeways, a relatively younger and rather passionate collective, sees only a more dire future for Portland should the plan go forward. Often working in association with the city’s Sunrise Movement chapter, No More Freeway’s accurately descriptive name aims to discourage the further construction of said road type.

Earlier this month, No More Freeways (NMF) expressed its deep displeasure with the expansion by filing a complaint with the ODOT, suing in response to a required environmental assessment of the plan it understands to be deeply dishonest.

No More Freeways has repeatedly shown it is unafraid to challenge the state’s logical progression regarding the actual practicality of the project.

As Aaron Brown, an organizer for NMF, explains: “We’ve seen it in cities all over the country – when you build an additional lane of freeway, it merely encourages more people to drive – and therefore, when billions are spent and the freeway is widened, there’s merely more cars stuck in traffic.

“Los Angeles spent $1.6 billion widening the [Interstate] 405 five years ago and congestion actually got worse,” Brown tells The Advocate. He further adds that “there actually hasn’t been a single traffic fatality on this stretch of freeway [on I-5] in over a decade.”The group finds this local issue to be emblematic of a far larger problem centered on a complicit system.

“Forty percent of Oregon’s carbon emissions are from transportation,” Brown says. “Currently, ODOT directs billions towards these freeways and other road widening projects and starves us of the resources we need for more climate-friendly transportation options. […] a lot of politicians in the state legislature and in local government don’t have the guts to try and hold this rogue agency accountable,” he asserts.

After a promising April 9 rally at Harriet Tubman Middle School (an institution that would be directly adjacent to the expansion) attended by dozens of protesters, No More Freeways doesn’t appear to be holding back its continued advocacy efforts. Neither do other groups, including BikePortland (a cycling community), the nonprofit Albina Vision Trust and Neighbors for Clean Air, the latter joining in NMF’s lawsuit against ODOT.

Meantime, the Portland City Council and Mayor Ted Wheeler have formally withdrawn support for the I-5 project.

No More Freeways is hopeful about creating a greener, better sustainable Portland in the future – something it clearly considers worth the fight, while acknowledging the amount of precise, determined work still needed to be done to achieve this vision. As Brown details, “A dramatic expansion of public transit, in particular, is necessary for us to hit our carbon emission reductions. We need more bus-only lanes, we need buses running every 5 minutes, we need to build dense, walkable neighborhoods with affordable and attached housing connected by frequent and reliable transit.

“These investments will help tackle our housing crisis, and make it easier for more communities to live in close distance to their jobs and houses,” he says.