| # | First Name | Last Name | Communication |
| 6775 | Jay | Thatcher | Don't. |
| 6778 | Andrew | Barker | The proposed auxiliary lanes will induce more traffic, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions and less safe streets throughout the region. The money devoted to this project would achieve better safety and environmental impacts if it were dedicated to transit or active transportation in the corridor with no highway widening component. |
| 6779 | Kyle | Kemenyes | Hello, I believe that the current plan to move the I5 SB Off ramp to deposit traffic on a northbound round will greatly negatively affect traffic around the entire region. Any event at the Moda Center or Coliseum will force traffic to take two left turns and cross Broadway & Wielder twice over. |
| 6780 | Fred | Jones | Having read the project updates, I feel more firmly than ever that I just DON'T WANT THIS PROJECT TO BE BUILT. There are sooooo many better ways to spend the almost $1 billion that this project will cost - so many other unmet needs in Oregon. |
| 6781 | Brian | Ray | From: Brian Ray <Redacted> Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 4:25 PMTo: GERBER Rose Rose. Gerber@odot. oregon. govSubject: Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Available for Public ReviewHi!I might be missing it, but I don't see any link to the actual supplemental document. Probably right in front of my eyes. Could you please send me a link or show me where the link is? Thanks! |
| 6782 | Cory | Pinckard | Hello There, Oregon owes a lot of its strengths to rail infrastructure, much of which unfortunately no longer even exists. The further we move away from the logical layout provided by streetcar grids and electric commuter interurban railroads the uglier and less livable the city and its suburbs become. An intelligent coastal city would take advantage of this limited time of people crowding in to install city assets that will benefit us for generations such as a rail route beneath the Willamette and railway going between Vancouver and us. It makes perfect sense to put railway stations and stops on Marquam Hill (serving patients of all types including veterans) and at our community colleges and zero sense not to. When our Oregon Electric and Red Electric Railways, streetcars and trolleys were stolen from us, so too were our jazz district, Little Italy alongside and intermixed with the geographic center of our local Jewish Community. We lost so many interesting places and unique architecture, it was a colossal theft and betrayal of the residents at the time along with all future longtime inhabitants and visitors of Portland. Not all change is progress and a lot of the time it s regressive. EV s are a greenwashing consumerist centered, greed based pseudo-solution that also (along with ICE vehicles) destroy the environment by releasing greenhouse gases through resource mining, manufacturing processes pollutants and ultimately going to the landfill in mass droves. The pollution they cause is simply unnecessary as is the amount of urban space squandered on parking and other paved over autocentric wastes. They also perpetuate urban sprawl, redlining, the food deserts invariably caused by it, along with cities that are not navigable as a pedestrian or bicyclist and are, in fact, inhospitable to humanity along with being horrendous towards animals. Isn t it ironically sad that streets divide us more than connect us and impede us from trying to get to where we re trying to go? EV s add to traffic congestion. Commodification of societal necessities and normalization of trying to substitute rampant consumerism where we need standardized, regulated and uniform public utilities doesn t work. Putting the financial burden of transportation inefficiently and directly on the individual citizen is simply not wise or fair and hasn t been the norm for even 80 years. The fines, fees, road subsidies, permits, tickets, tolls, insurance and more that go into paying for an automobile is a colossal boondoggle strangling the nation from citizen to citizen with that ridiculous albatross hanging around their neck. To form the bone structure of walkable places we need to invest in commuter rail that s properly implemented as it typically is overseas. A commuter rail system is an engineering marvel while buses are just buses. The most reliable predictor of a neighborhood being impoverished is if it has no commuter rail connection (which Robert Moses intentionally famously forced to happen by having overpasses for cars too low for commuter rail to continue to run beneath them along with a ton of other disgusting ploys). The American people are apathetic through decades of disenfranchisement and a lot of that marginalization (eg Robert Moses s racist urban renewal) is through divestment of public infrastructure, utilities and programs to help the American people. How many special places were destroyed fated to become mere parking lots? How many lives were wrecked as entire communities and cultural centers of minorities were wiped off the face of the world as though an atomic bomb had been dropped on it in order to force through highway robbery highways were pushed through the wreckage and rubble of razed annihilation that those same victims now in atomized diaspora had to then help subsidize which is often the case with the rapid onslaught and constantly rupturing outbreak of mediocre monstrosities being raised all over the place currently, looming gloomily over neighborhoods they ve doomed as ugly tombstones in the special spaces and places of what was demolished for them to be erected. We re past the point of car dominated transportation being anything better than a tragic hindrance or an outright travesty. Public works materially improving life for the taxpaying citizenry will bolster civic pride. Transcontinental High Speed Rail should integrate seamlessly with commuter rail networks so it can evenly function as one cohesive system and this will convert flyover country back into a thriving heartland by functioning as an artery of commute and commerce which will reduce clustering on the coasts. Similarly, wholly integrated circuits of commuter rail blended with interurban routes, light rail lines, street car grids, subways, and even trolleys along with electric ferries functioning together as a comprehensive series of interwoven systems would prevent people from having to live on top of each other in city centers in order to have quick access to urban cores and downtown areas so this would stimulate our local economies and prevent gentrification from demolishing cherished heirlooms of our historicity, destroying our classic neighborhoods, shredding the fabric of our communities and toppling our civic landmarks and architectural heirlooms along with other social capital such as venerable culture generating venues. Numerous studies show that built environments of homogenously bleak and bland duplitecture dreck made from extremely toxic and highly flammable petrochemicals that profiteering developers push on us for their privatized gains to our public loss for the riches of themselves and price gouging corporate slumlords not only cause homelessness from being financially inaccessible to most Americans, but also cause depression from creating such a devastatingly sterile, cold, unloving urban habitat that s too congested and overcrowded to work properly as a correctly engineered built environment. Our roadways are overcrowded and no amount of widening them and adding lanes will do anything to help it because it just leads to induced demand that inevitably grinds to a halt at snags and bottlenecks down the road. Shouldn t American cities be thriving centers of culture and character rather than austere and chintzy morasses of mediocrity?I believe that we can design the cities of our nation to reflect a future that embraces humanity and that we also must for America to have any sort of a bright future ahead of it. Right now we are mired in the destruction of our cities from the inward attacking neocolonial oppressors who weaponize their clout of wealth against the nation for their own off-shore un-American gains of privileged, parasitic, private profits. This greed fueled anti-social exploitation is present day feudalism driving us into another gilded age. Tons of new brutalist luxury living housing units remain empty serving only as financial assets in investment portfolios of hedge fund and permanent capital firm cretins sheltering dubiously acquired wealth instead of as direly needed shelter for humans. We deserve a landscape we can be proud of and country should come first before corporate looting and exploitation. Legacies are important and live on forever. With space opened up in our cities we could rebuild beloved structures gone from economic and environmental disaster utilizing new technologies such as hempcrete and 3-D printing. We could create vertical agriculture farms etc. on spots currently now just serving as paved over squares and nothing more. We can extend democracy into offering the taxpayer residents democratic say in what their city consists of, how it looks and how it operates promoting civic engagement and participation. Let s be a truly progressive place. With the Utmost Sincerity, Cory Pinckard |
| 6786 | Zachary | Lesher | Spending an estimated $1. 4 billion to increase private automobile capacity is at odds with the economic, social, and environmental goals of Oregonians both within and outside of Portland. Firstly, wasting those resources on a project that will make a major population center more hostile to people outside of cars at a time when our state faces an increasingly impossible to ignore housing and human rights crisis is unforgivable. An essential precondition to achieving our mobility goals is making sure that our population has the ability to live near the destinations that they want to reach on a regular basis. Additionally, in 2015 there were nearly 4,000 homeless Portlanders, a number which has certainly increased in the interim due to the economic effects of the pandemic. A use for the $1. 4 billion which could serve to ameliorate both of these problems would be for the state to build beautiful, dense, mixed-use public housing, as outlined in the People's Policy Project's 2018 report "Social Housing in the United States" (https://www. peoplespolicyproject. org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SocialHousing. pdf). Next, if ODOT wishes to continue considering its mandate in serving the state's transportation system more narrowly, using those resources to improve the ODOT-owned arterials and highways for modes of travel other than private vehicles and semi trucks would be a much more effective use of these resources. The importance of this has recently been highlighted by the needless death of Sarah Pliner on ODOT-owned Powell Blvd, which was made intentionally unsafe by the removal of cycling amenities by ODOT in order to discourage its use by anyone outside of a vehicle. Suggestions for improving roads such as Powell Blvd would be to decrease the number and width of vehicle travel lanes, and re-allocate that space to wider sidewalks, street trees, concrete-protected cycling tracks, and dedicated mass transit lanes. These uses of space would require much less maintenance than its current use as a speedway for heavy vehicles, and would save ODOT money in the long run. At minimum, ODOT should bring roads like Powell up to its own standards outlined in Blueprint for Urban Design (https://www. oregon. gov/ODOT/Engineering/Documents_RoadwayEng/Blueprint-for-Urban-Design_v1. pdf). Overall, a huge expenditure of taxpayer funds in order to repeat our past mistakes of trying to solve the geometry problem of fitting an infinite number of cars in a finite urban space is a poor way to serve Oregon residents, and we should instead be considering ways to undo the harm caused by highway construction in the first place. The proposed capping of the freeway in the rose quarter and other related concessions are a transparent attempt to give an inequitable and wasteful project cover to do what appears to be ODOT's real goal with this project: endlessly increase vehicle capacity at the expense of every other metric of well-being for our State's residents. |
| 6787 | Jynx | Houston | ________________________________From: Jynx Houston <Redacted> Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 7:44 PMTo: GERBER Rose Rose. Gerber@odot. oregon. govSubject: I-5 Rose Quarter DON'T KEEP WIDENING ROADWAYS & THEN CALLING IT COMMUNITY-BUILDING. ODOT IS CROOKED AS THEY COME. I'M TALKING ABOUT SELF-SERVING CORRUPTION. Jynx Houston Portland, Oregon |
| 6788 | Andrew | Holtz | This project has some good points, but the negative effects of induced demand outweigh them. Also, the immense cost of the project is far out of line with the benefits. These funds could produce far more transportation and community benefits if they were spent in other ways. As we face the grave threats from climate change (much of it due to vehicle emissions) and have urgent transportation safety needs, this project spends too much to produce too little. |
| 6789 | Stuart | Elmer | Spending an estimated $1. 4 billion to increase private automobile capacity is at odds with the economic, social, and environmental goals of Oregonians both within and outside of Portland. Firstly, wasting those resources on a project that will make a major population center more hostile to people outside of cars at a time when our state faces an increasingly impossible to ignore housing and human rights crisis is unforgivable. An essential precondition to achieving our mobility goals is making sure that our population has the ability to live near the destinations that they want to reach on a regular basis. Additionally, in 2015 there were nearly 4,000 homeless Portlanders, a number which has certainly increased in the interim due to the economic effects of the pandemic. A use for the $1. 4 billion which could serve to ameliorate both of these problems would be for the state to build beautiful, dense, mixed-use public housing, as outlined in the People's Policy Project's 2018 report "Social Housing in the United States" (https://www. peoplespolicyproject. org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SocialHousing. pdf). Next, if ODOT wishes to continue considering its mandate in serving the state's transportation system more narrowly, using those resources to improve the ODOT-owned arterials and highways for modes of travel other than private vehicles and semi trucks would be a much more effective use of these resources. The importance of this has recently been highlighted by the needless death of Sarah Pliner on ODOT-owned Powell Blvd, which was made intentionally unsafe by the removal of cycling amenities by ODOT in order to discourage its use by anyone outside of a vehicle. Suggestions for improving roads such as Powell Blvd would be to decrease the number and width of vehicle travel lanes, and re-allocate that space to wider sidewalks, street trees, concrete-protected cycling tracks, and dedicated mass transit lanes. These uses of space would require much less maintenance than its current use as a speedway for heavy vehicles, and would save ODOT money in the long run. At minimum, ODOT should bring roads like Powell up to its own standards outlined in Blueprint for Urban Design (https://www. oregon. gov/ODOT/Engineering/Documents_RoadwayEng/Blueprint-for-Urban-Design_v1. pdf). Overall, a huge expenditure of taxpayer funds in order to repeat our past mistakes of trying to solve the geometry problem of fitting an infinite number of cars in a finite urban space is a poor way to serve Oregon residents, and we should instead be considering ways to undo the harm caused by highway construction in the first place. The proposed capping of the freeway in the rose quarter and other related concessions are a transparent attempt to give an inequitable and wasteful project cover to do what appears to be ODOT's real goal with this project: endlessly increase vehicle capacity at the expense of every other metric of well-being for our State's residents. |
| 6790 | Brandon | Van Buskirk | Instead of repairing the damage done to this fundamentally important urban fabric, this project will further the destruction of this inner-city neighborhood in favor of "moving" automobiles to the suburbs. This does not get us closer to reducing CO2 by making dense places better places to counter the destructive dominance of the automobile. |
| 6791 | Ian | Irwin | What are the alternatives considered to this project? Considering how widening highways historically increases congestion by unleashing latent demand, there are probably better ways to address the issue. The environmental impact section is also laughably sparse and makes no mention of the effects of the project itself due to the increased amount of impermeable surface and heat island effect. Could congestion be lowered through a combination of congestion pricing and improving safety for non-car travel? I would like to see an Environmental Impact Statement and consideration of alternatives to this project before any more steps are taken to implement it. |
| 6792 | Cale | B | No more lanes! stop killing us with cars |
| 6793 | Sean | Pliska | It is depressing to see ODOT has continued to pursue a weird ideology of increasing capacity for motor vehicles in order to counter congestion, increase safety and lower emissions, when almost every project that increases capacity does exactly the opposite. It is as if convergence of evidence across research subjects, science and basic perception are set aside for a dream of spending more money on roads. What would actually decrease congestion, increase safety and lower emissions? I'm hoping some day ODOT will review research on these issues. Until then we have this weird transparent religion of just build it wider and somehow, some way, this time it'll work. |
| 6794 | Timothy | Fryer | Your own information shows this project increasing VMT, don't we need to be drastically reducing this? Quit building expensive and unsustainable car infrastructure and give us better public transit and walking/cycling facilities! |
| 6795 | Ben | Weber | I'm extremely disappointed you have not given attention to an EIS analysis of no auxiliary lanes and no added interstate capacity. Your two primary goals "safety" and "Operations" seem speciously supported. This stretch of I-5 is considerable safer than most ODOT facilities in Portland from the perspective of serious injuries and fatalities - why not devote resources elsewhere, such as 82nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard? Per operations, auxiliary lanes area a cludge that will induce demand to the area and negate and purported traffic throughput gains. Your designs for relocated highway ramps seriously imperil walking and biking safety, by your own admission! Forcing northbound bikes to cross two significant turn movements, one at a highway ramp and one at a double right turn on Weidler. The highway covers are questionable. What development do you expect at three stories? Why subject this development (which may end us as low-income housing) to suffer undue impacts of emissions and poor air quality?Put bluntly, why do you deny that adding capacity does not smooth nor make more reliable vehicle travel. Induced demand is scientifically proven and any new capacity will quickly fill up as people flood the route. Why not implement tolling, a state gas tax increase, and other demand reducing methods first?This project and process is deceptive and an affront to Oregon's sensibilities. Please do better. We are in a climate emergency. Climate leaders don't widen freeways. |
| 6796 | Richard | Smith | Hello! I live down in North Albany (Benton County), and am totally against creating toll roads on roadways already paid for by state and federal tax dollars!Additionally, the rates mentioned are absurd! These roads are not San Francisco Bridges! Perhaps a 50 cent charge would be ok, but at the suggested rates, no way. We already live in the second highest cumulative tax rate state in the country. . . this will only make it worse. I only travel to (and thru) Portland a few times a year, mainly to get to PDX. Our family no longer visits Portland because of the crime-ridden armpit that it has become. . . this toll will guarantee we never travel north! Why pay to visit "Tina's Tent City"??? Might as well just wall it off and let the dopers have it. This would represent just one more tax in an already overtaxed state. Please respect the taxpayers and do NOT add these tolls. The state has a huge surplus already. . . I suggest raiding the coffers in Salem if you need it that bad. And while you are at it, I suggest fixing what have become our deplorable roads. Sincerely,Richard H. Smith and Family [Redacted ] Sent via phone |
| 6797 | Lee | Klingler | The traffic in this area is a mess. It s time to fix it. Enough said. |
| 6798 | Amanda | Holland | Please do not expand the highway. There is a lot of evidence showing that Highway expansions do not overall reduce traffic overtime. The traffic just grows. Please put the money into a more reliable and safe transit system. And the tolling seems reasonable. |
| 6799 | Matthew | Shipkey | It s unconscionable that when our planet is literally burning up, ODOT is intent on adding fuel to that fire via a highway expansion project. Take that money and invest it in something that can actually heal our planet and the Albina community. Why are you investing millions of Oregon taxpayer dollars in a project that will principally benefit high income, single occupancy commuters from the Vancouver suburbs? Matt Shipkey [Redacted] |
| 6800 | Mrs. | Lingy | What is the plan of the expansion. I've heard covering it, expanding it. . . I can see expanding, but only with tolling. |
| 6801 | Elizabeth | Zenger | I am opposed to expansion of I5 through the Albina district in NE Portland. Tolling should be considered as an alternative to any freeway widening. Any freeway widening will damage the community and the environment. Elizabeth Zenger [Redacted] Sent from my iPad |
| 6802 | Ed | Hayes | Hello-I fully support any upgrades to I-5 capacity through the rose quarter. I have lived in the Portland area for 23 years and the entire time this section of freeway has been terrible to drive through. Please add as many additional traffic lanes as possible. Thank you, Ed Hayes [Redacted] |
| 6803 | Ted | Smith | Hi, In general I have no problem with charging tolls on major roadways, but if the result is moving vehicles onto surface streets, I would be adamantly against. A toll system around Portland needs to be well thought out so it doesn t increase traffic in neighborhoods. It s no victory to claim you ve reduced traffic on I-5, I-205, I-84, etc., when 102nd, Sandy, MLK Jr., and adjacent streets become parking lots. I feel PBOT takes the head-in-the-sand approach on the impact it causes to nearby streets when it reduces lanes on a major boulevard and I really hope ODOT doesn t copy that strategy. Ted Smith |
| 6805 | Tim | Andrews | Please expand I5 and yes to tolling! Yes yes yes. Thank you. Tim Andrews Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone<https://overview. mail. yahoo. com/?. src=iOS> |
| 6806 | Anonymous | Timestamp: 11/17/2022 8:06:00 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"Hi. I just wanted to comment that I think tolling the bridge is a great idea. We should toll both the 205 and the 5 bridge, otherwise, people are just going to switch to the other. And we need to raise funds to support them. So, that's all. Thank you, Bye, bye. " | |
| 6807 | Robert | Rubenstein | I'm opposed to tolling on bridges in the Portland metro area. I've livedhere since 1983. This plan will cause a disproportinate burden to lowincome people who must drive two and from work. Any plan to mitigatethis burden through transponders will be at the cost of personalprivacy. Tolling is a bad plan driven by greedy bureaucrats. Robert Rubenstein |
| 6808 | Sheila | Ruland | Timestamp: 11/17/2022 7:54:54 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"Sheila Ruland, Hollywood area, Portland. I'm against any widening of highways the point of climate change is we need to get people out of their cars, don't make it easier to drive, and don't ruin houses and streets. " |
| 6809 | John | Weil | From: John Weil [Redacted] Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2022 2:19 PMTo: GERBER Rose rose.gerber@odot.oregon. govSubject: rose quarter project mapsHello Rose,Can you point me to current, fairly detailed before and after maps for the Rose Quarter Project?Also, can you confirm the impression I got from the video that the plans to cover parts of the freeway do not include the section in front of the grade school? Was that possibility considered? Thank you for your assistance,--John Weil |
| 6811 | Jim | Mole | NO tolls!!!!!!!! . you vultures have been reaping gas taxes from me since 1970!!!! you guys have absolutely no shame Jim MoleSent from my iPhone |
| 6812 | Brennen | Hankins | To whom it may concern,Hi, my name is Brennen Hankins. I m a native Oregonian, born in Eugene, raised mostly in Woodburn and Keizer, and until very, very recently, was an active duty member of the United States Air Force, stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana (just medically retired). I mention my service not for clout, but to provide perspective as to 1) why I would be concerned about the Rose Quarter project, despite not currently living in Oregon, and 2) why I support the widening of Interstate 5. As an active duty servicemember, I was awarded 30 days of leave annually, with the ability to roll unused leave from the year previous into use [by the end of the following fiscal year] or lose [government has to buy it back] status, for a maximum (in theory) of 60 days in a single year. Airmen are highly encouraged by leaders to use their leave for the benefit of both the DoD (as not using it means it is causing DoD to spend money to buy unused leave back) and the individual airman (aside from Jack Nicholson s famous adage about all work and no play , airmen tend to get absolutely hosed on taxes when their leave gets sold back to the government). It was no different for me. Fortunately, I had plenty of reasons to take leave: Aside from visiting my mother and stepfather who (until last year) lived in Keizer, I also spent a lot of time helping out at my grandmother s ranch in Woodburn, visiting my other grandparents in Coos Bay, and helping my father (in Astoria) and uncle (in Warrenton), both commercial fishermen who operate their own vessels, with gear work during Dungeness crab season. I also once famously hauled over 100 donated cases of bottled water from Montana to Salem, when their aquifer was contaminated with toxic algae and rendered undrinkable for a short time in 2018 [link: Man travels from Montana to bring cases of water to Salem | KATU<https://katu. com/news/local/man-travels-from-montana-to-bring-cases-of-water-to-salem> ]. Needless to say, I never once had to sell unused leave back to the government. The problem for me (and others whose family doesn t live convenient to a major airport) is trying to get home. Due to the high cost of flying out of Great Falls International Airport [GTF]; the lack of convenient direct flights to PDX, let alone the towns I was actually going to (Salem/Keizer, Woodburn, Coos Bay/North Bend, Astoria/Warrenton), and the fact that I d have to arrange for ground transportation to my actual final destination if I -could- fly to PDX, the entire time I was stationed in Montana, I just drove my truck home. Despite the 12 hour, 750 mile drive (from Great Falls to Salem), it s cheaper and easier than trying to fly. The reason I mention this in relation to your project is, no matter which of the aforementioned locations I was headed to, the route I have to take to get there, all the way up to the junction of I-84 and I-205, is always the same, and I always have to pass through the Portland area. I-84 and I-205? you might say, That s nowhere near the Rose Quarter! Why is this relevant?! You re right, the I-84/I-205 interchange is eight miles to the east, nowhere near your project. However, Portland is the home of the sole interchange between major Interstates (I-5 and I-84) in the entire state of Oregon. Part of that s due to Portland s status as a major, as well as Oregon s biggest, city. The other reason is due to the terrain. A lot of fuss made by opponents of freeway expansion is focused on commuters traveling locally within the Portland area. What they re missing is, in Portland specifically, is all the other traffic that has to pass through there: folks traveling to and from PDX; commercial drivers transporting goods both locally or merely passing through; Port of Portland traffic, commuters to the Portland Metro Area who live -outside- the Metro Area, and travelers: drivers coming from points north to south and vice-versa, travelers coming from points east to the Coast and vice-versa, and homesick folks like myself that are a combination of any of those. Freeway expansion opponents propose expanding alternatives to driving for commuters. The problem is, for everyone else, they still pretty much have to drive through Portland. During the numerous instances of unrest in the Portland Metro Area from 2016 onwards, I d given major consideration to bypassing the Portland area in the event I d be traveling home during the same time a protest spread out onto the freeway, as has happened multiple times before. Thankfully, I never had to do this as a result of a protest, but I did have to do so in 2016, due to I-84 being shut down from Troutdale to Hood River, due to an ice storm (in this instance, utilizing Highway 99E, Highway 212, U. S. 26, and Highway 35 to detour around the closure). As a fun experiment, I played around on Google Maps a bit, and took screenshots, for your consideration. Attached below is a portion of the route I usually end up having to drive, from Hood River to Woodburn (highlighted in blue). This route isn t necessarily specific to just me, but anybody wanting to reach the Willamette Valley north of Eugene, or the North Coast, from points further east. Note that Google is claiming going through the Rose Quarter is quicker than utilizing I-205 to Tualatin. Google claims a distance of 92 miles and an estimated travel time of 1 Hour, 27 Minutes at the time of the screen shot:[Screenshot of google map]Now, say, for whatever reason, Portland is gridlocked or otherwise unnavigable: Maybe due to extreme flooding, more protests blocking the freeway, maybe that big earthquake finally hits, Russia finally loses it and nukes every major city on the West Coast, a meteor lands centered right on the Burnside Bridge, the Flying Spaghetti Monster completely pancakes Downtown, etc. etc. Whatever the scenario you can imagine, however terrible or benign the reason, assume the entire Portland Metro Area is unnavigable. For the purposes of the argument, my definition of the Portland Metro Area consists of Portland and the neighboring cities of Gresham, Troutdale, Clackamas, Milwaukie, Gladstone, Oregon City, West Linn, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Sherwood, Tigard, Beaverton, Sylvan, Cedar Hills, Cedar Mills, Aloha, Hillsboro, Vancouver (WA), Battle Ground (WA) and Camas (WA), along with all the smaller communities within that circle. -Not- included are Sandy, Boring, Estacada, anything south of Wilsonville, anything southwest of Tigard (i. e. Newberg), anything west of Hillsboro (i. e. Forest Grove and Banks), or between Hillsboro and the Columbia River (i. e. Cornelius Pass), and anything north of Vancouver or Camas, with the exception of Battle Ground and the smaller communities between. Under those rules, the nearest alternate route from Hood River to Woodburn that avoids the Portland Metro Area, as defined above, consists of (working east to west) Highway 35, U. S. 26, and the entire length of Highway 211. That route is 116 miles with an estimated travel time of 2 hours, 21 minutes. That s an additional 24 miles and an extra full hour of driving just to get around Portland, driving at slower speeds on windier and, in the case of Highway 211, mostly two-lane country highway:[Screenshot of google map]Let s do another one, say, Hermiston to Astoria. Fortunately, Google included both the quickest route (through Portland) and the next quickest (avoiding the Metro Area) together, so I was able to get both routes side-by-side in one shot:[screenshot of google map]God Forbid both U. S. 30 and the Glenn Jackson (I-205) Bridge both go down. Detouring through Yakima and Castle Rock adds almost another 50 miles and an hour and a half to the trip! (Suppose one could loop all the way around the Metro Area to the Sunset Highway (U. S. 26), but that detour would be even longer!)Now, the big one: Say both I-5 and I-205 are rendered unusable. Bridge failure, highway protest, natural disaster, nasty pileup on both freeways, take your pick. Here s what things look like between Longview (the next crossing of the Columbia, north of Portland) and Woodburn (first city on I-5 south of the Metro Area). 80 miles and an Hour, Twenty Minutes, on a -good- day:[screenshot of google map] . . and on a -bad- day:[screenshot of google map]Another hour and 20 miles on twisty mountain roads, oof. And there s length and weight restrictions on Apiary Road (which is not a state highway) between U. S. 30 (near Rainier) and Highway 47 (near Pittsburg, north of Vernonia); freight trucks have to detour all the way to Clatskanie. Same for Spring Hill Road/North Valley Road between Highway 47 (near Gaston) and Highway 240 (west of Newberg); truck traffic has to detour all the way to Yamhill. My point in all this, and I hope you re picking up what I m putting down, is there s no good alternative to driving through Portland. All of the alternate routes tack on, at minimum, another hour, on roads that are narrower, twistier, and more dangerous (at least under normal conditions you take your chances driving through Portland during a riot) than the freeway system. To be honest, I d rather not drive through Portland. Between the traffic and the crime, I d much rather detour around it. However, as I ve shown above, there s no convenient, easy bypass around it, and unlike me, most of the non-local people who have to pass through probably aren t going to be on vacation and won t have the extra time to burn on bypassing the Metro Area (and even in my case, I m hesitant to add an additional hour to an already-12 hour trip). So, since there isn t a safe freeway bypass of the Metro area, and the state probably isn t going to be building one anytime soon, the least that ODOT and the City of Portland can do is help make sure we re able to pass through the area as quickly as possible. Residents of Portland and the Multnomah/Washington/Clackamas County Triumvirate aren t the only people that have to use the freeway system up there, and while Portland can ride bikes, take public transit, or carpool as much as they want, the rest of us frankly don t have that option. And when traffic bottlenecks in Portland (such as it does in the Rose Quarter and on the Marquam Bridge, on a daily basis), once we re caught up in it, we don t have a reprieve. If we know well in advance, we can detour, but the minute we run into a sea of brake lights in the Metro Area, the only thing we can do is slog through it. One more thing: Most of the goofy laws that result in high rates of crime, excessive drug use, rampant homelessness, onerous restrictions on already law-abiding Oregonians, and excessive taxes, along with the bulk of the state legislators that push these laws down our throats, largely get pushed upon everyone else in the state by residents of the Portland Metro Area, who vote for it all with overwhelming, enthusiastic support, no matter what residents in the rest of the state say. If Portland wills it, Portland gets it, because voters there think they know better than the rest of us: It s for the greater good! . Well, turnabout s fair play. I ll admit, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Portlanders in response to this proposal provides a great source of Schadenfreude. And at least my fuel taxes are actually going towards something I support for once. Because in this case, it really is for the greater good, not just for Portland, but for travelers across the entire state and beyond. I support the I-5 Rose Quarter Widening Project. I just hope ODOT has a method of capturing all the salt-laden tears that I imagine will be cried during the public hearings. You guys are probably going to need them to de-ice the highways, closer to the holiday season. Cheers, and look forward to seeing the finished product,-Brennen Hankins |
| 6813 | Gregory | Frank | This is an issue that should be put to a vote by the citizens that would be affected. People are still going to need to use the Freeways, therefore all this would be is a money grab and do NOTHING to relieve congestion. The poorest are the ones that will be affected the most. . . . Because the people in power do not want to build more roads because they would need to buy more land, I am sure we have engineers that could figure out a way to build UP instead of out. Nothing is impossible. Gregory Frank |
| 6814 | Michael | Ransom | The Rose Quarter congestion results from poor design, including the Rose Quarter on ramp, & magnitude of traffic including North/South (Canada to Mexico) commercial trucks. Too much money (& politics) wasted & should have been solved years agolMichael Ransom |
| 6815 | Patrick | Hudson | Hello,Please just improve the efficiency of the existing footprint of the freeway and do not expand it. It will just induce more congestion at high cost. Ideas:Variable priced electronic tolls nowAllow motorcycle lane sharingVariable speed limits with camera enforcement |
| 6816 | Patricia | Gardner | We're in support of this project - what no one ever discusses is that the current situation causes daily multiple traffic jams in this location. The amount of fumes that come off these idling cars is never spoken about but as someone who lives & works across from Harriet Tubman, I can tell you that you can palpably smell the fumes every time the traffic backs up. We do not have to look at our watches to know it is rush hour, we have but to smell the air. I am certain that having the traffic flow more freely will actually improve the immediate air quality. I wonder if this effect could be measured on i-205 where the same type of project successfully occurred. Did the immediate air quality improve around those improvements? As for the folks who say this is adding capacity - how is a 3 lane highway that is remaining a 3 lane highway, adding capacity? All that is happening is that a dangerous merging situation that causes excess fumes is being eliminated. Instead of 3 lanes to 2 to 3 lanes in a very short space, it will be a consistent 3 lanes. The righteousness about this project is a little hard to comprehend - where was the outrage for the same project at i-205? |
| 6817 | Aurelia | [Redacted] | My name is Aurelia [Redacted] I am fifteen years old. I oppose the I-5 Rose Quarter project because of a phenomenon ODOT has heard much about, induced demand. As you know, it means that adding more lanes will only create more demand for the freeway, leading to more traffic and more pollution. Rebuilding the Albina neighborhood on top of such a polluted area will create a toxic nightmare for residents of the neighborhood. When you cap the freeway, the pollution doesn't go away. It may be trapped for a while underneath the caps, but wind will eventually push it into the surrounding air. I wholeheartedly support rebuilding Albina, but it is possible to do so without expanding I-5. |
| 6818 | Eric | Van Dyke | This can be simple and brief: Alternatives to the proposed Rose Quarter lane expansion need to be thoroughly analyzed. That means a full Environmental Impact Statement. The proposed project won't--and shouldn't--proceed until an EIS is completed. |
| 6819 | Harry | Stringer | Why spend so much on something that accomplishes so little? Induced demand after creation of additional lanes is well documented, and putting an off ramp onto one of Portlands' busiest bike routes seems cruel and myopic. No part of this project seems to address any real problem, with traffic levels, noise pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and intersection complexity all offering little or no overall improvement by or after 2045. Why not spend these millions on bike lanes and public transit, the only things that have ever effectively improved transit conditioins? |
| 6824 | David | Brown | You took a $300m project and made it a $1. 25B project (and that doesn t count the $120m allocated to move Harriet-Tubman school). We should call the new freeway cap the Kate Brown Memorial Toilet brought to you by ODOT because this is where your tax dollars were flushed. And you wonder why tolling is now required to pay for actual roads instead of freeway caps. When ODOT says there is no other way to pay for the I-205 upgrades it is just another lie of convivence. No doubt you will find ways to spend the tolling revenue on non transportation and non I-205 upgrade projects as is already demonstrated by your own publications. If it wasn t for your horrible credibility you wouldn t have any credibility at all. You can count on me to vote against every new transportation increase because you folks cannot be trusted to actually spend the money on transportation. It is a breach of trust to even spend dollars planning for a freeway cap. You should all be fired for being horrible stewards for the money allocated to ODOT. David Brown |
| 6825 | Robert Daryl | Hall | There should be no toll for any road or highway in this area. Toll roads should only exist in very limited circumstances where the traffic doesn't justify the need and the people who benefit from the road should pay the toll, if even then. We pay more than enough in taxes so please don't add another tax and call it a toll. Thanks Robert Daryl HallBeaverton, Oregon |
| 6826 | David | Peters | It s way past time to do something about the gridlock that this I-5 interchange has caused for decades. The dream of getting everyone on public transportation or bikes or walking isn t practical for an overwhelming majority of people. Cars are not going to go away. In fact with the abundance of EV s, the need for more lanes is crucial. This expansion technically isn t even adding new lanes, just extending existing ones. However anything will help at this point to keep traffic somewhat moving. I believe getting rid of any carpool lanes and adding a 3rd lane are what is truly needed. I m sure the anti-transportation crowd will disagree. They seem to be the minority that gets all the attention these days, while the average person just trying to get to work and back don t count. |
| 6827 | Hannah | Childs | To whom it may concern: Thank you for planning on expanding the freeway near the rose quarter. Not only will this increase safety (with more room for merging), it will also increase productivity and efficiency while reducing potential pollution of cars sitting in extended and unnecessary traffic. Gratefully, Hannah Childs |
| 6828 | Lori | Eichelberger | Yes traffic sucks in those areas but tolls will only cause more problems. As it is, when traveling from Eugene, where I live, I do everything I can to take back roads in order to avoid the 205 and 5 thru Portland. I know I m not the only one. Thank you, Lori Eichelberger |
| 6829 | Aaron | McDonald | Please don't listen to the vocal minority of comments being led by Jonathan Maus and Bike Portland (a website that just recently came out in SUPPORT of activists slashing tires on cars in Portland - https://bikeportland.org/2022/11/09/opinion-despite-panic-deflating-suv-tires-is-a-smart-protest-tactic-366833 ) and build the I-5 expansion to help Portland solve its tremendous traffic problems. |
| 6830 | Rick | Kappler | Where is ODOT's full Environmental Impact Statement for the wasteful I-5 freeway Rose Quarter project? Why are you building this project directly by private rail road lines? Why not spend the BILLION DOLLARS on helping public transportation in urban, suburban, and rural Oregon? Why not restore the Amtrak Pioneer train to make it go from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Oregon and then to Cheyenne, Wyoming and then to Denver, Colorado and on to Texas or Chicago, Illinois instead of wasteful freeway spending? Why not advocate to ban metal-studded car tires in Oregon instead of wasting money on a freeway project? Why are you wanting to remove the north-south freeway overpass that is west of North Vancouver Avenue? |
| 6831 | Dennis | Harper | Hello ODOT,To be honest I had not been in favor of this project until the latest proposal to WIDEN the freeway caps and make them capable structurally to support low- or mid-rise buildings. With buildings on the freeway caps, the City will be able to better connect both sides of I-5, which has been a disruptive divide in the city fabric. Regards, Dennis Harper Sent from Proton Mail mobile |
| 6832 | Michael | Peterson | Please note my support of increasing the freeway capacity via additional lanes, interchange improvements, and widening in Rose Quarter. The current situation is overburdened. This results in congestion, frustration, safety problems, and additional pollution. Added capacity will improve these issues. In addition I support the freeway cap. It will help connect the neighborhood, improve property value and reduce traffic by giving drivers more surface options. The state and city have neglected Portland and have not invested appropriately in freeway capacity as it has allowed the region to grow. Thanks, Michael Peterson |
| 6833 | Patrick | Halley | Hello, I am writing to express disappointment in the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement project and Supplemental EA. While I am a fan of covering the interstate, the current proposal is clearly half-baked and focused on auto traffic. It introduces new safety concerns for pedestrians and does not come close to recognizing the potential for new development on top of the lid. I am not a native Portlander, but I have lived here for 12 years and would love to see this become a project our city can be proud of. I would hope the design team could leverage ideas from Seattle's Alaska Way Viaduct replacement and Boston's Big Dig freeway project. Each of these projects successfully eliminated unsightly freeways and established new parks and plazas which are now cherished by residents. |
| 6834 | Geoff | Grummon-Beale | I drive my car on I-5 through the project area 2 times a day, at rush hour. I do not think there is any need for this project. My delay in the project area is at most 1-2 minutes. That slight delay does not warrant a project of this size and cost. I think the project should be cancelled. Furthermore, this project is being sold as a "safety" project. However, it is clear from the project design drawings that conditions will be made much less safe for pedestrians and bicyclists on the streets surrounding the project area. This is particularly true at the new proposed off ramp onto Williams Avenue. Williams is the most heavily travelled bicycle route in the city. Introducing an off-ramp with thousands of daily vehicles onto it will be a recipe for crashes and deaths. |
| 6835 | Matt | Bahr | No more traffic near population centers. No more investment in the oil economy. Spend the money on housing the homeless and fixing the roads we already have. Think long term and get the highway out of the congested city. The tires alone create unhealthy spaces. |
| 6836 | Paul | Leitman | I have not followed all design iterations too closely, so I'm not aware of what has or has not already been considered. But has the project team considered maintaining the southbound I-5 offramp to Broadway for traffic wanting to take Broadway westbound? This would reduce the volumes coming out of the southbound I-5 offramp to Ramsay/Williams (which would be maintained for traffic wanting to take Weidler eastbound or Williams northbound). If this has not been considered previously, I'm wondering if this configuration would distribute traffic more evenly and reduce the volumes through any single intersection, hopefully making signal timing better overall to help move people and good through the area. Secondly, I'm concerned about locations where crosswalks would be closed on any leg of an intersection. The ones I'm aware of are on N Williams at NE Broadway (west leg), and NE Weidler at N Williams (north leg). This significantly reduces pedestrian access. Just because a crosswalk is closed does not prevent someone crossing at that location. As a community, it should be acceptable to have additional vehicle delay or waiting time in order to provide sufficient pedestrian access and safety. Could these crosswalks be re-added? Lastly, I'm concerned about all locations where there are dual turn lanes: westbound Broadway to northbound Williams, westbound Broadway to southbound Vancouver, northbound Victoria to westbound Broadway, northbound Williams at to eastbound Weidler, northbound Williams to westbound Broadway. Would there be sufficient space to add bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly slip lanes? This means raised crosswalks, angles that allow good visibility to the left and right, designs that keep vehicle speeds slow, and designs that reinforce modal and directional priority by the nature of design (i. e not through signals or signage). This would allow vehicles to turn when safe to do so, and not just on a green phase. This could reduce the need for two vehicle lanes for queuing and storage, and allow just one turn lane. Yes, sometimes vehicles will back up. But not as much as if they have to wait for a green phase once per cycle. |
| 6837 | Seth | Arnold | Adding more lanes never seems to help. Add tolls to the Columbia crossings and move from demand generation to demand destruction. Thanks |
| 6838 | Jonathan | Hansen | This plan is frankly, horrific. Rather than take the opportunity to better the district and community by improving multimodal transit, this plan doubles down on automobile traffic by actively displacing the pedestrians, bikes, and other forms of transit. This is particularly impactful, as PBOTs bike share program data shows that over 2% of all bike trips within Portland travel on the impacted streets. Clearly the planners missed a step, because if removing crosswalks, bike lanes, and other transit is necessary to place a ramp at this location, perhaps there shouldn t be a exit off I-5 southbound at Wheeler. In addition to adding support for non-automobile modes of transportation, please consider amending this plan to place the exit where it can connect to N Interstate Street. For example placing off/on ramps at N Thompson would allow traffic to reach all destinations freely with minimal travel impacts and lower project costs. |
| 6839 | Phil | Kulak | I'm strongly OPPOSED to this project. With everything we've learned about urban planning over the last 5 decades, and while running headlong into a climate catastrophe, caused in part by too many cars on the road, the idea is to ADD freeway lanes? Whoever had this silly idea needs to head back to Los Angeles or Texas. They love destroying cities with freeways down there. We shut down the Mount Hood Freeway up here, and I hope to God we can shut this down as well. |
| 6840 | Eric | Casteleijn | I strongly oppose the project as laid out. The time for highway expansions is over, we need to invest in public transit only, and encourage people to drive substantially less, not more, because the planet is literally dying. |
| 6841 | Lucy | Kennedy-Wong | Hi there,I am a regular transit user and biker through the project are. Looking at the SEA, under the Transit KEY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY FINDINGS:"There is potential for transit ridership to increase in the project area with future development of the highway cover. "How would future development of the highway cover increase transit ridership? Since this project's main driver is ease of people driving on I-5, which will therefore increase the use of single occupancy vehicles on that freeway, how is this project going to do anything for transit users? It seems instead that will continue to invest tons of tax dollars on car drivers, without thinking at all about increasing transit use, something which is CRUCIAL for improving air quality in that area. This is all not to mention the current effects of climate change, which are furthered by the greenhouse gas emissions which come from these cars. Also, under the Active Transportation KEY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY FINDINGS:If you know there is a "potential for pedestrian/auto conflict at the proposed new I-5 southbound ramp location, which could increase due to the additional traffic at this location" why isn't something being done about it? You're playing with people's lives. Pedestrians will die and it will have basically been planned if you do nothing about this conflict. Thanks, Lucy |
| 6842 | Eamon | Haverty | This isn't a safety project, this stretch of I-5 has fewer fatalities than Powell or 82nd. |
| 6843 | Amy | Schuff | Delighted this is happening. the current traffic pattern is horrible and dangerous. I'm especially happy about the auxiliary lanes and lessening the need to merge. |
| 6844 | Eric | Terhaar | I have read many news stories about this project. Most of them have mentioned studies that are estimating the environmental impact, including the expected pollution. I just wanted to find out if any of those studies factor in the currently in-progress transition to electric vehicles. It seems that many, if not most, of the pollution concerns will eventually be mitigated or eliminated by that transition and are therefore almost moot. |
| 6845 | Mike | Davis | Please prioritize reducing rcongestion on I-5 through the Rose Quarter. With no practical alternatives available to me, today I must choose between inching through traffic or just staying home. Whether for work or pleasure, I (and my tourist dollars) usually end up staying home. I want my tax dollars spent on congestion reduction. |
| 6846 | Peter | Parmenter | Strongly in favor of this much needed project that affects so manly oof us on a daily basis. Thank you! |
| 6847 | Rick | Pope | 1. This major traffic bottleneck needs fixing for traffic flow and safety purposes. I am concerned about climate change but we will be driving more and more electric vehicles and we will continue to need and use our highways. Smoothing the bottleneck will also keep heavy traffic on I-5 rather than encouraging drivers to leave the interstate and route themselves through neighborhoods. 2. The fix needs a highway cover that satisfies the Albina advisory board. This is a must in my view. What our ODOT forebears did to the Albina community is a serious injustice that we need to correct. The correction needs to remedy the wrong as closely as possible. If we cannot correct the injustice in a way that satisfies the Albina board the project should halt until we can. 3. Tolling a small stretch of I-5 for traffic control is a deeply flawed idea. It will push traffic on to local streets and increase neighborhood congestion and bike and pedestrian risks. Tolling to pay for construction makes sense to me, but should be done in a way that doesn t focus the side effects on Albina and surrounding neighborhoods. Why not have tolling between the Vancouver bridge and the Wilsonville bridge, and use the funds to pay for this and the new Vancouver bridge project? And keep tolls low for short hops within the city. |
| 6848 | Angela | Zehava | I do not support this project. It is gross and disgusting that you are bribing a low income community to make your environmental racism palatable. SPEND MONEY IN ALBINA AND THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES WITHOUT BUILDING A POLLUTING HIGHWAY. We need light rail, not more traffic lanes. We need more trees, not concrete. I also do not appreciate how this project has been railroaded over so many objections. It begs the question: which rich, white males will benefit? I assume that is what this full court push is about: business & money. I will renew my participation in opposition organizations. |
| 6850 | Susan | Milke | Make no changes. Yes, it gets backed up but folks can adjust travel times, means or travel or be patient |
| 6851 | Christine | McMonigal | I-5 in the Rose Quarter area is narrower than many other sections of I-5 in the city, despite this area being a high traffic zone. In particular, I-5 southbound loses a lane and necks-down in the Rose Quarter, and in many instances this is a direct cause of the congestion. At the very least, that lane should continue until the I-84 east exit. Traffic entering the highway from the Rose Quarter on-ramp has a short runway to merge with traffic trying to get to the I-84 exit. Anything that ODOT can due to alleviate unnecessary lane changes will both reduce emissions and increase safety in that area as traffic moves more smoothly. Christine |
| 6852 | Charlie | Ta | Hi All, I appreciate all the work that has been done to make improved changes to the I-5 Rose Quarter interchange for the public. A few recommendations I had, which may have been stated before, would be:(1) maintain the existing I-5 south auxiliary lane off-ramp but as a one-lane, right turn only exit configuration with a Yield sign at N/NE Broadway for commuters that plan on heading West-bound in addition to the easier access to the Rose Quarter parking area; (2) maintain the proposed I-5 southbound off-ramp at NE Wheeler/N Ramsay/N Williams with the following lane configuration changes between the off-ramp to NE Wielder: (2a) the lane configuration should be one through lane (west side), one combined right turn/through lane (centered), and a right-turn only lane (east side). This lane configuration makes it more consistent with the proposed lane configuration changes between NE Wielder and NE Broadway in which the center lane is a continuous through lane between the new I-5 South off-ramp and to the existing N Williams Ave traffic. Thanks, Charlie |
| 6853 | Anders | Hart | I have four concerns about the I-5 Rose Quarter Project s Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) and the current Hybrid 3 alternative. First, the proposed relocation of the southbound I-5 off-ramp would create a dangerous hazard to people cycling on Williams Avenue. I bike through that area multiple times per week, and the current intersection with N Williams Avenue is already dangerous. Drivers regularly block the intersection as they try to get onto the on-ramp before the next traffic cycle. Adding an off-ramp at that location would put people s lives at risk, especially considering the poor sight angles that drivers would have as they exit the proposed southbound off-ramp. Second, ODOT should reconsider the proposed crosswalk closures shown in the SEA s figure 2-11 at NE Weidler and NE Broadway, as both closures would impair pedestrian connectivity. Leading pedestrian intervals and wider turn radii at those intersections would improve safety while maintaining connectivity. My third concern relates to the proposed highway cover in the Hybrid 3 alternative. The Supplemental Environmental Assessment suggests the need for interim uses on the highway cover for the period between Project completion and when the City-led development process would be implemented (p. 20). This note suggests that there is currently no plan to develop permanent uses such as housing or other permanent structures on the highway covers. The absence of a solid plan is concerning and indicates that the covers may remain vacant for extended periods before anything substantial is built on them. ODOT should work with the City of Portland and private developers to formulate a solid plan for these covers. My fourth concern regards the proposed auxiliary lanes. While merging traffic is problematic, I strongly encourage ODOT to assess the potential for these lanes to induce further travel demand. By temporarily reducing travel times, auxiliary lanes may encourage more people to drive more, thus erasing their benefit. ODOT should assess the potential for the proposed Regional Mobility Pricing Project to reduce traffic congestion as an alternative to expensive auxiliary lanes. |
| 6854 | Jim | Muir | I fully support the improvement of this stretch of I5. One might argue the merits of the original placement and design, but we are here. This is an economic blockade to commerce, commuting, and travel. Spinning about trying to defend pokes from every and often obtuse objection is ridiculous. Move on or it will never get done. We need strong leadership to put a stake in major milestones and stick to them. Please! |
| 6855 | Daniel | Derrick | My name is Daniel Derrick. I am a native Oregonian, I live in North Portland, and I commute to work through the Rose Quarter area by bicycle or public transportation. I have major issues with the impacts of this project on Active Transportation and Traffic Operations, and with the misleading summary of this information provided by ODOT in this open house. In the Active Transportation page, the Open House claims that "Movement for people walking, biking, and rolling would improve overall with the project compared to without the project". It is far from clear that this is true, but the downsides to this project are consistently downplayed and conveniently omitted from the "Key Findings" tab. Similarly, the "Traffic Operations" page of the open house claims to describe the project's impacts on both I-5 and surface street traffic flow, yet the impacts on surface streets are barely described, with details buried within the SEA and Traffic Analysis Technical Reports. The misleading way in which this information is being presented makes me question whether ODOT is acting in good faith with this open house and public comment period. As described in SEA Section 3. 13. 2. 2 (pages 93-94), this project would close certain crosswalks at the busy intersections of N Williams and Weidler and N Williams and Broadway. This change would certainly not improve safety. Removal of these crosswalks would require those walking, rolling, etc. to cross a dangerous intersection three times instead of once. This is a safety hazard and inconvenience for all, but it is particularly insensitive to the needs and safety of folks with mobility-related disabilities. Also, the out of direction travel (acknowledged in the SEA) will undoubtedly increase the likelihood of noncompliance with pedestrian signals (i. e. jaywalking), creating another safety hazard. The relocation of the I-5 SB off ramp to N Wheeler/N Ramsay Way, as shown on Page 42 of the Supplemental Traffic Report, is also extremely concerning to me. This change would place two interstate access ramps directly next to each other and directly in the path of northbound bicycle and transit traffic on Williams, which would make travel more dangerous, slower, and less convenient for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users, all for the benefit of drivers on I-5. The I-5 on-ramp in this area is already a stressful, high-traffic location. At present, rush hour auto traffic (bound for I-5 SB) frequently backs up into the intersection of N Ramsay/N Wheeler, blocking the intersection for cyclists and transit. Adding an interstate off-ramp here would make the situation so much worse. The backed-up traffic in the N Ramsay/Wheeler intersection would block visibility of the proposed I-5 SB off-ramp, creating a huge safety hazard. Even without visibility issues, intersections with interstate ramps are some of the most stressful places for cyclists and pedestrians, in my experience. Drivers coming off the interstate are exiting an environment devoid of cyclists, pedestrians, city life, etc. and are often unprepared for the attentiveness and caution that is required for driving in a dense urban environment. Also, Pages 42-43 of the Traffic Report also describe the impacts of this change on transit service, as summarized in Table 18. I am concerned about the impact of these changes, and in particular the increase in northbound PM rush-hour travel times for Bus 4/44. The revised build may lower some bus travel times, but from these projections, it would lengthen the PM commute for transit users on the busy 4/44 NB lines. Finally, the traffic pattern that I-5 SB traffic would have to take to access events at the Moda center seems very inefficient and likely cause gridlock at many of the busy intersections at Broadway and Weidler. A project that is this expensive should have benefits for all users, but this project as proposed would lengthen the PM commute for the busy 4/44 NB lines, would dump fast and inattentive interstate traffic into the path of commuters on the city's busiest bike route, would discourage and deprioritize walking by removing crosswalks, and would increase the gridlock on local streets caused by events at the Moda center. These issues must be resolved if so much public money is to be spent on this project. |
| 6856 | Anonymous | Timestamp: 11/20/2022 11:42:06 AM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"I'm a Portland voter and I vote no on any tolls or anything on the Rose Quarter or on the bridges. Vote "no"! If you vote for that, I will not vote for you in the next election. Thank you. " | |
| 6857 | Aaron | Fehon | TWIMC,As an Oregon tax payer, I am opposed to all tolls on our roads. It's been my understanding that the reason we pay done is the highest gas taxes in the county is that those funds pay for our roads. Now we're expected to pay tolls as well?! That sounds like the gas taxes are being poorly managed if not mismanaged altogether. Furthermore, with the way things are given inflation, cost of living, and wages that aren't reflective of these hardships, I predict that tolls are merely going to create extra congestion of surface streets. That's where I'll be driving, since I certainly can't afford another $80/month in extra bills. Don't do this. It's a terrible, terrible idea. -A |
| 6858 | Jim | Buck | It seems to me we have a gas tax to pay for Maintenance and new constructionHow is this pushing for more electric cars doing for gas tax revenue?Tax the electric cars by mileage and let the gas tax aloneJim Buck |
| 6859 | Alisa | Scudamore | I am writing AGAINST the Rose Quarter project, as a resident of NE Portland and frequent user of the freeway network. Widening freeways DOES NOT relieve traffic. Decades of research have shown this to be costly and ineffective, and it will adversely affect our ENVIRONMENT. This very expensive project makes absolutely no sense for easing traffic and will only have detrimental impact on the health of people in the city as well as our environment. Please do not proceed with this senseless plan. Thank you,Alisa Scudamore |
| 6860 | Brennen | Hankins | Hi again,In case the screenshots didn't upload, I've resubmitted them as attachments in this email. They should appear in order:#1) Hood River to Woodburn, Freeway#2) Hood River to Woodburn, Metro Bypass#3) Hermiston to Astoria, side-by-side comparison#4) Longview to Woodburn, Freeway#5) Longview to Woodburn, Metro Bypass Thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience. -Brennen HankinsSent via the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone-------- Original message --------From: Brennen Hankins [Redacted]Date: 11/18/22 7:32 AM (GMT-07:00)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot. oregon. govSubject: Comment in support of projectTo whom it may concern,Hi, my name is Brennen Hankins. I m a native Oregonian, born in Eugene, raised mostly in Woodburn and Keizer, and until very, very recently, was an active duty member of the United States Air Force, stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana (just medically retired). I mention my service not for clout, but to provide perspective as to 1) why I would be concerned about the Rose Quarter project, despite not currently living in Oregon, and 2) why I support the widening of Interstate 5. As an active duty servicemember, I was awarded 30 days of leave annually, with the ability to roll unused leave from the year previous into use [by the end of the following fiscal year] or lose [government has to buy it back] status, for a maximum (in theory) of 60 days in a single year. Airmen are highly encouraged by leaders to use their leave for the benefit of both the DoD (as not using it means it is causing DoD to spend money to buy unused leave back) and the individual airman (aside from Jack Nicholson s famous adage about all work and no play , airmen tend to get absolutely hosed on taxes when their leave gets sold back to the government). It was no different for me. Fortunately, I had plenty of reasons to take leave: Aside from visiting my mother and stepfather who (until last year) lived in Keizer, I also spent a lot of time helping out at my grandmother s ranch in Woodburn, visiting my other grandparents in Coos Bay, and helping my father (in Astoria) and uncle (in Warrenton), both commercial fishermen who operate their own vessels, with gear work during Dungeness crab season. I also once famously hauled over 100 donated cases of bottled water from Montana to Salem, when their aquifer was contaminated with toxic algae and rendered undrinkable for a short time in 2018 [link: Man travels from Montana to bring cases of water to Salem | KATU<https://katu. com/news/local/man-travels-from-montana-to-bring-cases-of-water-to-salem> ]. Needless to say, I never once had to sell unused leave back to the government. The problem for me (and others whose family doesn t live convenient to a major airport) is trying to get home. Due to the high cost of flying out of Great Falls International Airport [GTF]; the lack of convenient direct flights to PDX, let alone the towns I was actually going to (Salem/Keizer, Woodburn, Coos Bay/North Bend, Astoria/Warrenton), and the fact that I d have to arrange for ground transportation to my actual final destination if I -could- fly to PDX, the entire time I was stationed in Montana, I just drove my truck home. Despite the 12 hour, 750 mile drive (from Great Falls to Salem), it s cheaper and easier than trying to fly. The reason I mention this in relation to your project is, no matter which of the aforementioned locations I was headed to, the route I have to take to get there, all the way up to the junction of I-84 and I-205, is always the same, and I always have to pass through the Portland area. I-84 and I-205? you might say, That s nowhere near the Rose Quarter! Why is this relevant?! You re right, the I-84/I-205 interchange is eight miles to the east, nowhere near your project. However, Portland is the home of the sole interchange between major Interstates (I-5 and I-84) in the entire state of Oregon. Part of that s due to Portland s status as a major, as well as Oregon s biggest, city. The other reason is due to the terrain. A lot of fuss made by opponents of freeway expansion is focused on commuters traveling locally within the Portland area. What they re missing is, in Portland specifically, is all the other traffic that has to pass through there: folks traveling to and from PDX; commercial drivers transporting goods both locally or merely passing through; Port of Portland traffic, commuters to the Portland Metro Area who live -outside- the Metro Area, and travelers: drivers coming from points north to south and vice-versa, travelers coming from points east to the Coast and vice-versa, and homesick folks like myself that are a combination of any of those. Freeway expansion opponents propose expanding alternatives to driving for commuters. The problem is, for everyone else, they still pretty much have to drive through Portland. During the numerous instances of unrest in the Portland Metro Area from 2016 onwards, I d given major consideration to bypassing the Portland area in the event I d be traveling home during the same time a protest spread out onto the freeway, as has happened multiple times before. Thankfully, I never had to do this as a result of a protest, but I did have to do so in 2016, due to I-84 being shut down from Troutdale to Hood River, due to an ice storm (in this instance, utilizing Highway 99E, Highway 212, U. S. 26, and Highway 35 to detour around the closure). As a fun experiment, I played around on Google Maps a bit, and took screenshots, for your consideration. Attached below is a portion of the route I usually end up having to drive, from Hood River to Woodburn (highlighted in blue). This route isn t necessarily specific to just me, but anybody wanting to reach the Willamette Valley north of Eugene, or the North Coast, from points further east. Note that Google is claiming going through the Rose Quarter is quicker than utilizing I-205 to Tualatin. Google claims a distance of 92 miles and an estimated travel time of 1 Hour, 27 Minutes at the time of the screen shot:[screenshot of google map]Now, say, for whatever reason, Portland is gridlocked or otherwise unnavigable: Maybe due to extreme flooding, more protests blocking the freeway, maybe that big earthquake finally hits, Russia finally loses it and nukes every major city on the West Coast, a meteor lands centered right on the Burnside Bridge, the Flying Spaghetti Monster completely pancakes Downtown, etc. etc. Whatever the scenario you can imagine, however terrible or benign the reason, assume the entire Portland Metro Area is unnavigable. For the purposes of the argument, my definition of the Portland Metro Area consists of Portland and the neighboring cities of Gresham, Troutdale, Clackamas, Milwaukie, Gladstone, Oregon City, West Linn, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Sherwood, Tigard, Beaverton, Sylvan, Cedar Hills, Cedar Mills, Aloha, Hillsboro, Vancouver (WA), Battle Ground (WA) and Camas (WA), along with all the smaller communities within that circle. -Not- included are Sandy, Boring, Estacada, anything south of Wilsonville, anything southwest of Tigard (i. e. Newberg), anything west of Hillsboro (i. e. Forest Grove and Banks), or between Hillsboro and the Columbia River (i. e. Cornelius Pass), and anything north of Vancouver or Camas, with the exception of Battle Ground and the smaller communities between. Under those rules, the nearest alternate route from Hood River to Woodburn that avoids the Portland Metro Area, as defined above, consists of (working east to west) Highway 35, U. S. 26, and the entire length of Highway 211. That route is 116 miles with an estimated travel time of 2 hours, 21 minutes. That s an additional 24 miles and an extra full hour of driving just to get around Portland, driving at slower speeds on windier and, in the case of Highway 211, mostly two-lane country highway:[screenshot of google map]Let s do another one, say, Hermiston to Astoria. Fortunately, Google included both the quickest route (through Portland) and the next quickest (avoiding the Metro Area) together, so I was able to get both routes side-by-side in one shot:[screenshot of google map]God Forbid both U. S. 30 and the Glenn Jackson (I-205) Bridge both go down. Detouring through Yakima and Castle Rock adds almost another 50 miles and an hour and a half to the trip! (Suppose one could loop all the way around the Metro Area to the Sunset Highway (U. S. 26), but that detour would be even longer!)Now, the big one: Say both I-5 and I-205 are rendered unusable. Bridge failure, highway protest, natural disaster, nasty pileup on both freeways, take your pick. Here s what things look like between Longview (the next crossing of the Columbia, north of Portland) and Woodburn (first city on I-5 south of the Metro Area). 80 miles and an Hour, Twenty Minutes, on a -good- day:[screenshot of google map] . . and on a -bad- day:[screenshot of google map]Another hour and 20 miles on twisty mountain roads, oof. And there s length and weight restrictions on Apiary Road (which is not a state highway) between U. S. 30 (near Rainier) and Highway 47 (near Pittsburg, north of Vernonia); freight trucks have to detour all the way to Clatskanie. Same for Spring Hill Road/North Valley Road between Highway 47 (near Gaston) and Highway 240 (west of Newberg); truck traffic has to detour all the way to Yamhill. My point in all this, and I hope you re picking up what I m putting down, is there s no good alternative to driving through Portland. All of the alternate routes tack on, at minimum, another hour, on roads that are narrower, twistier, and more dangerous (at least under normal conditions you take your chances driving through Portland during a riot) than the freeway system. To be honest, I d rather not drive through Portland. Between the traffic and the crime, I d much rather detour around it. However, as I ve shown above, there s no convenient, easy bypass around it, and unlike me, most of the non-local people who have to pass through probably aren t going to be on vacation and won t have the extra time to burn on bypassing the Metro Area (and even in my case, I m hesitant to add an additional hour to an already-12 hour trip). So, since there isn t a safe freeway bypass of the Metro area, and the state probably isn t going to be building one anytime soon, the least that ODOT and the City of Portland can do is help make sure we re able to pass through the area as quickly as possible. Residents of Portland and the Multnomah/Washington/Clackamas County Triumvirate aren t the only people that have to use the freeway system up there, and while Portland can ride bikes, take public transit, or carpool as much as they want, the rest of us frankly don t have that option. And when traffic bottlenecks in Portland (such as it does in the Rose Quarter and on the Marquam Bridge, on a daily basis), once we re caught up in it, we don t have a reprieve. If we know well in advance, we can detour, but the minute we run into a sea of brake lights in the Metro Area, the only thing we can do is slog through it. One more thing: Most of the goofy laws that result in high rates of crime, excessive drug use, rampant homelessness, onerous restrictions on already law-abiding Oregonians, and excessive taxes, along with the bulk of the state legislators that push these laws down our throats, largely get pushed upon everyone else in the state by residents of the Portland Metro Area, who vote for it all with overwhelming, enthusiastic support, no matter what residents in the rest of the state say. If Portland wills it, Portland gets it, because voters there think they know better than the rest of us: It s for the greater good! . Well, turnabout s fair play. I ll admit, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Portlanders in response to this proposal provides a great source of Schadenfreude. And at least my fuel taxes are actually going towards something I support for once. Because in this case, it really is for the greater good, not just for Portland, but for travelers across the entire state and beyond. I support the I-5 Rose Quarter Widening Project. I just hope ODOT has a method of capturing all the salt-laden tears that I imagine will be cried during the public hearings. You guys are probably going to need them to de-ice the highways, closer to the holiday season. Cheers, and look forward to seeing the finished product,-Brennen Hankins(formerly of Keizer, OR)[Redacted] |
| 6861 | Dave | Grindstaff | I support not expanding the freeway and incorporate variable rate tolling to reduce congestion. If the area is capped ODOT should pay for the development and ongoing maintenance. Thanks, David Grindstaff[Redacted] |
| 6862 | Candi | Ann | Aren't tolls for alternative routes? This is not offering any alternative route, just forcing a fee down our necks like anyone can afford it. Just expand our freeways like any other city without tolls. Or offer other routes, freeways, hwys, etc. Do you not travel outside of Oregon? Most citys have alternative routes, and hwys we have ZERO. |
| 6863 | Jim | Phillips | I am firmly against any toll roads in the Portland area, especially on freeways. The term freeway is synonymous with not paying anything to drive on them. This would be a regressive tax that charges people who can least afford it the most amount of money. Many people cannot afford to move to the side of town that they work, so they are forced to travel one of the busiest freeways in the area. Adding a toll on that obnoxious commute is cruel and unfair to the people they have to drive it. if you need to raise revenue, charge businesses so that they foot the bill. Sent from my iPad |
| 6864 | Bryce | Bederka | Hello,I do not understand the goal to reconnect an Albina neighborhood that no longer exists. The residential housing and neighborhood shops no longer exist and have been replaced in large part by a hospital and office and industrial space. This is not a field of dreams where a neighborhood will return to life when the people that made that neighborhood have largely moved away. And what will the cost of this new land be over the freeway? Will it be affordable to build single family or multi-family affordable housing? Or will the cost of this new land be such that luxury housing will be the only cost-reasonable option? How will that return the neighborhood that was displaced by urban renewal decades ago. The Rose Quarter I-5 project has suffered from project creep. The project needs to focus on decreasing congestion on the freeway without contributing to congestion on the surrounding roads. Improving the flow, decreasing the crossing on and off ramp traffic, should be the primary goal. However being landlocked, and not designed with adequate space for later expansion, the goals may not be cost feasible. Bryce Bederka |
| 6865 | Brent | Elliott | Use existing and new gasoline tax at the pumps to fund infrastructure projects. Users will pay. Folks will drive less and MPG will improve. Emmisions will be reduced. Cost would be spread throughout the METRO and state to fund needed infrastructure. Why create another bureaucracy that needs to be managed at taxpayers expense? Its too easy that is why. Thanks for askingBrent |
| 6866 | Bob | Thompson | Sirs,You should have built the freeways as planned and not listened too and given into the whims of portland and Multnomah county. You also know the chances of earthquakes around here and should have built bridges to withstand a 9. All the state does is think of more ways to raise taxes on the public for existing roadways. Your ideals will put more strain on citizens that need to travel I-205 & I-5 everyday for work and interstate travel. You need to find the monies else where in the state coffers. Thank you,Bob ThompsonMcMinnvilleP. S you probably already have your mind made up as most of you liberal do. |
| 6867 | Gordon | Hillesland | If tolls are necessary, the tolling function should be operated by government employees. The tolling function should not be privatized. If anyone is going to make a profit from tolling roadways, it should be the taxpayers. |
| 6868 | Susie | Barrios | This is a type of regressive tax. Those who can barely afford gas and must use the freeway will have to pay alongside those who can easily afford the toll. This will also cause more delays and congestion in an already congested area. Better to use bonds or sources of federal money. Thank you for considering my voiceSusie BarriosPortland residentSent from my iPad |
| 6869 | Eliot | Thompson | Hi guys,Please don t do this, we are struggling terribly as it is with prices/inflation. Please don t tax us on getting to our jobs, we are breaking. Thank you,Eliot |
| 6870 | Evelyn | Wendlandt | To whom I hope it concerns:All toils are another way to tax people who are already hurting. Should not the people have a right to choose any decision to add MORE taxes to their dwindling incomes?This is NOT the time to hurt Oregonians more. Evelyn WendlandtSent from my iPhone |
| 6871 | Gannon | Smith | This is a bad idea. We live in a state that is one of the highest taxed in the country and your wanting to hurt the poor even Moore by limiting the routes people can take? This will make it so more side roads get congestion. The reason you want to do this is simply you want money and to screw the people of this state. NO ON A TOLL |
| 6872 | Drew | I hope that the funds from taxpayer dollars that ODOT uses for freeway construction (primarily collected from car users) are used on improving transportation, congestion, and safety for those car users - ie: more lanes, safer roads, etc. Ensuring good transportation seems like it should be the primary mission of the transportation department. Also - no tolls. | |
| 6873 | Chuck | Legg | Let me give you a much simpler way to reduce traffic. Start enforcing laws that require current license plate tags on cars. The amount of expired plates in this state is out of control. Let's add to the fact that if you don't pay for your tags, I'll assume that "why pay for insurance?" And in the Metro Area, They are not running the cars through DEQ. Double the amount of the cost of the tags if they are more than 1 month beyond expiration. Chuck Legg[Redacted] |
| 6874 | Maria | Schur | Hi,Please prioritize environmental and human-powered safety concerns for this project. Building bigger freeways creates more traffic, more traffic creates more pollution and less-connected communities. Please build the future we want for the next generations: a future with breathable air, people getting about their daily travels without dependency on personal-use motor vehicles. Thank you,Maria Schur |
| 6875 | Kiel | Johnson | Timestamp: 11/21/2022 12:49:46 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"Hello, my name is Kiel Johnson, and I'm the chair of Bike Loud PDX. And I was inquiring about the new proposed U-turn and on ramps and how that'll affect bicycling traffic on NE Williams and North Williams, which is really important, bikeway for the Portland bike network, and a lot of people use that. Be great to have somebody from the Rose Quarter Project come and speak on this issue at one of our Bike Loud meetings or to the board. You can give me a call back, my cellphone number is [Redacted]. Thanks. Bye, bye. " |
| 6877 | Gary | Kruger | What I have not seen is a simple statement of what this project does. I have read just a lot of "technical" with facts about traffic flow will be better and smoother, with lower emissions, etc. that is difficult for the normal voter to comprehend. Very simply, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A three lane freeway coming up to the Rose Quarter becomes a two lane freeway, even when I-84 westbound traffic to northbound I-5 is added. You essentially have a superimposed partial I-84 freeway on 1-5, but no additional lanes. The situation is similar with eastbound to southbound I-405 to southbound I-5 through the Rose Quarter. So, simply, you have a three lane freeway effectively becoming a two through lane freeway for a little over a mile in each direction. It might just as well be a two lanes/direction freeway for the freeway segments north and south of the Rose Quarter as well for all the good the third lane does in the immediate area. This is not a freeway expansion, just a balancing the number of lanes through the section with the sections of I-5 north and south of the Rose Quarter. Every driver understands what happens when you drop a freeway lane. There was a similar situation on the Nimitz Freeway in the Bay Area between the junction of I-238 and State Route 92 (over the San Mateo Bridge), again a scenario of two freeways in one for several miles through San Lorenzo and Hayward, with the obvious congestion night and day. This was corrected by adding lanes between the two east-west freeways offset by some miles on I-880, the Nimitz Freeway. You might want to ask Caltrans about whether this worked better. It was NOT an improvement to "widen" a freeway, but simply to provide continuous through lanes for all lanes coming to and from that section. Tolling is used throughout the nation in major urban centers, and it seems to be an effective tool for managing freeway operations. Tolling revenues could be used to support alternative modes of travel. I also believe that autonomous operation of vehicles is probably OK for high design roads with limited access, like freeways and expressways, but not urban streets. With an effective portion of a freeway set aside for autonomous operation, it might be possible to have vehicles running 50 to 55 mph 50 feet apart, more than doubling the capacity per lane, and limiting the need for freeway widening. Of course, the cars should be all electric. I do not see the future travel demands in Portland or other U. S. urban areas being accommodated with huge expansions of transit (rail and bus), bikes, scooters, etc. Most cities in the nation are not dense enough to support cost-effective transit. Bottom line, I am for the Rose Quarter project, and you might want to take a look at tolling and how you might use tolling revenues for operations, and to support alternative modes. Perhaps tolling could also be used to float revenue bonds to make up the current deficit of funds for the project. Makes sense politically, don't you think?Gary Kruger |
| 6878 | Bruce | Koepke | [---------- Forwarded message ---------From: Bruce Koepke [Redacted]Date: Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 11:43 AMSubject: I-5 Rose Quarter Air PollutionTo: <i5RoseQuarter@odot. gov<mailto:i5RoseQuarter@odot. gov> > I previously conferred with a former diesel air pollution expert at Freightliner/Daimler trucks about changes that could result from improvements to I-5. Diesel and gasoline pollution experts are now at engine manufacturers such as Detroit Diesel, Cummins, car manufacturers, etc. I had sent information in March 2020 to Mayor Wheeler. Clean Diesel engine emissions are very low when the emission control system is hot, which means the vehicle has been operating under load. If a truck is moving at 40-50 mph, the time spent emitting per vehicle would be low, and the emission system would stay hot. If stuck in traffic, idling or crawling, emission systems could get cold, causing emissions to increase tenfold, and for a much longer time. Catalyst equipped gasoline vehicles are similar. Emissions of HC, NOx, and CO are very low when the engine is operating under load, and for a while when idling or crawling along, but emission rates increase highly over idle or crawling time. In General, moving vehicles could result in a 90% reduction in overall emissions in a given area. It's a complicated issue to be exact, but support would be given by engine manufacturers. Bruce Koepke, former Executive Engineer, Safety Systems at Freightliner, Daimler Trucks North America |
| 6879 | Ron | Bergman | Certainly, looking at this area is needed. However the proposal is short sighted and will not solve the problem. A different solution is needed. Here an out of the box approach. Additional capacity in the downtown area can be achieved without building new lanes. > From the Southside of Markam bridge I5 (both sides) should be redesignated I5 north to the north side of the Fremont bridge and I405 should've designated I5 south. Doing so will require some ramp work, lane merges, and signage. One side could be designated through traffic and the other local; but this should be an operational determination. If the future as anticipated by current planning assumptions that individual car usage will decline over the next 20 years become real, then the current configuration could be reverted to. This would be longer lasting, relieve travel congestion in the downtown area and allow for changes in driving patterns over time. Yes some out of direction travel would be required for west side drivers wanting to go north or for eastside drivers wanting to go south, but the distances are short and the increased capacity makes the distance in limited time. |
| 6880 | Jennifer | Cobb | Concerned citizens against any toiling of freeways in oregon for any projectTolling needs to be stopped,I shouldnt have to pay the government to drive on Freeways for which we have already paid for with our gas tax or to get to workAnd around the community to purchase Things that benefit the communityBecause of the projected increase in electric vehicles, electric cars need to be taxed based on weight and mileage since they won't pay gas taxesNot by tollingJennifer and Jon Cobb |
| 6881 | Leo | Kaminski | ODOT,YES, YES, YES! To i5 Rose Quarter freeway expansion. Please fix the i5 Rose Quarter freeway. Portland's freeways are antiquated and completely inadequate. This work should have been done 20 years ago. Please do your job. Don't listen to the "no freeways" protesting minority, they do not represent real Portlanders. We want progress, not excuses. --Leo Kaminski |
| 6883 | Kyle | Chesney | Public funds should not be wasted on expanding the interstate and instead the department of transportation should focus on more beneficial projects. Public transit, bike infrastructure, I-5 bridge to Vancouver replacement. Adding more lanes doesn t improve traffic flow, induced demand should be common knowledge. If you truly want to help the local economy and the Albina community you could spend that money wasted on widening the freeway, mostly for the benefit of the traffic going to Seattle, on maintaining roads, more bike infrastructure, more public transit. Interstate expansion projects are just a flashy gesture that improves nothing. You can t apologize to a neighborhood for destroying it by adding more interstate saying that the people there should thank you for making it easier to get onto the interstate that cut through their neighborhood |
| 6884 | Sky | Shimano | Tolls are not the answer. The roads and bridges have been crumbling by the neglect of officials who spent funds on bike lanes where repaving roads were needed. Many neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area still don't have sidewalks let alone paved roads. I'm an Oregonian born and raised, living in Portland for over 20 years now and it hurts to watch what city politics have done to this once pedestrian friendly city in the past 5 years, closing down community centers/pools and shelters, obstructing sidewalks with cyclist right of ways and ongoing construction. Yes, I went on a rant. Tolls are not the answer and I am for widening I5 in the Rose Quarter area. Still unsure of what "cover" you are referring to. To all the "cyclists" who claim to be full on cyclists, give up your cars/suvs and really ride your bike everywhere every day, in all weather conditions. I hope you find my option useful. Thanks |
| 6885 | Roberta | Richards | To ODOT representatives:I read in Sunday's Oregonian (Nov. 20, 2022) that ODOT is still considering expanding the freeway at the Rose Quarter, presumably with the goal of reducing congestion. While reducing congestion is a worthy goal, I implore ODOT to adopt an evidence-based approach to this goal. Substantial research has documented that freeway expansions produce a feedback effect known as "induced demand," in which additional roads lead to an expansion of drivers traveling those roads. Everyone loses in these situations: billions of tax-payer dollars are spent; congestion is only temporarily reduced; and additional traffic produces more heat-causing emissions. During graduate school I lived in Los Angeles, which is living proof that building roads does not reduce traffic. Portland should take a smarter, evidence-based approach to addressing the Rose Quarter bottleneck, including investments in alternative transportation and congestion pricing. These alternatives also reduce carbon emissions, which must be the top priority of us all. The youth of Portland are fervently opposed to this freeway expansion, which has become a symbol of generational indifference to what we are doing to the planet that the youth will inherit. Our generation has destabilized ecosystems and weather patterns, and our youth demand that we devote our time and money undoing that damage. Do we not deserve their outrage if instead we spend billions on a project that increases planetary damage for the very small benefit of a temporary reduction in travel time?Thank you for reconsidering this misguided proposed expansion. Roberta Richards, Ph. D. ,--"Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. Thích Nhat Hanh |
| 6886 | Mike | Bettancourt | I would hope the expansion gets going as soon as possible, that area is so bad to getthough. Not doing it will only cause it to get worse, I think the expansion should beexpanded. Mike Bettancourt |
| 6887 | Emily | Herbert | I stand with the youth opposed to this project. When I recently learned that funding of the proposal to actually help BIPOC folks displaced by the past expansion in the Albina district, was less than envisioned, that finalized my opposition. Who wants to work or live on top of a polluted freeway any way? And move a school? The costs of this colossal boondoggle are staggering and could be put to much better used to actually decrease congestion. Such as funding electric bikes, safe bike lanes and transit for low income folks. Despite the intention to smooth out a very small area of congestion, it isn t worth the cost in the pollution from the construction alone!Much better is tolling that considers the income of the vehicle owner. Thank you for taking comments,Emily Herbert97232Sent from Mail for Windows |
| 6888 | Gloria J | Bouchor Luzader | Just a long time North Portland resident who is concerned. |
| 6889 | Karen | Berry | I vote a strong NO on expanding the I5 freeway in the Rose QuarterThank youKaren BerryNE Portland residentgrandmother to child who will begin Tubman middle schoolEnough!! |
| 6890 | Tom | Johnson | Timestamp: 11/22/2022 1:36:01 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"Yeah, this sounds like Mayor Wheeler's recording, hey, Tom Johnson here. [Redacted]. Hey, I just kind of wondering with this Rose Quarter project, what the state gave the money out five years ago. I didn't know if the money was in a CD or what was collecting or if it was being used for another job, you know. Kind of like the Harbor fund on the Willamette River. One time we're charging for hazardous waste and the next time we're charging for water, you know. So man, I wonder what the hold up is. It's been OK'd ready to go when the people didn't even vote on it. Let's get those cats moving and people in Oregon working. But I hear Wilsonville says we don't have enough people to work and right now to keep the job going. So anyway, just wondering if this was going to be another 10 or 15 years before it even gets underway. And, hell, by that time, electric cars will be in and you won't have to worry about the school. Be a lot quieter to, you wouldn't have even had to move Rocky Butte Jail. OK, thank you again. Just wondering what's been done with the money that's been funded for all these years. You know, a person could probably live on that pretty sweet. Course, it could have been put in the PERS bucket too. Talk to you later, [Redacted]. Bye. " |
| 6893 | Brian | Rousseau | I think ODOT is not being honest about the cost, need for & environmental impacts of this project. If indeed this section of freeway is so congested and such a bottleneck, why is ODOT so reluctant to study & implement a serious congestion pricing plan that frees up capacity and reduces the need to spend $1. 4 billion on this freeway expansion. |
| 6894 | Christian | French | I feel strongly that the I-5 corridor should not be widened. Ideally it would all be converted to bike lanes (maybe keep one lane for vehicle traffic). Then Anne can get over that one time she fell on her bike on the way to the office and ride safely and freely! |
| 6895 | Paul | Billing-Ross | Disgusting that ODOT is using the language of social equity and community building to try to ram through another freeway expansion project. Freeways destroy communities and no amount of equity window dressing will change that. Stop the freeway expansion. |
| 6896 | Richard | LaRue | This is a very disappointing proposal. The freeway caps would indeed help reconnect the Albina neighborhood, but it's unclear why the lane expansion itself is needed. Are there no alternatives to a lane expansion that would allow you to add the caps without also increasing traffic lanes, increasing pollution, and adding more dangers to cyclists and pedestrians. |
| 6897 | Winston | Marshall | The argument that tolling on I-5 and I-205 would make those venues safer would certainly be offset by making our neighborhoods less safe. Drivers would find alternate routes through neighborhoods to avoid the tolls. We should not be charged to use highways we have already paid for, and continue to pay for, with our gas taxes. If revenue is the motive, I suggest we implement a weight-mile tax on electric vehicles. The Oregon Department of Transportation has run some pilot programs to show the workability of such a tax, and it appears it would not be as expensive to implement as tolling would be. At the very least, put it to a vote of the people. I will not vote for any politician who supports this tolling. Winston Marshall |
| 6899 | Cassandra | Muilenburg | I believe that ODOT must pursue tolling BEFORE adding additional freeway lanes. I am in support of a freeway cap without a freeway expansion. Expanding the freeway into this neighborhood only repeats past harms and does not restore justice to the community. |
| 6900 | Michael | Harris | Yes please do it. |
| 6901 | Griffin | Pahl | Expanding the freeway is OLD, STALE thinking. We need to think about the FUTURE, when all the gasoline is gone or costs $35 a gallon, when minimum wage is still below $20. We won't be using the freeways when we have to choose between gasoline, shelter, and food! We need to create alternative forms of transportation: TRAINS, BIKE PATHS, and WALKWAYS. We're not gonna bring more people to our city with MORE FREEWAYS. We do not need more cars on the road. It has been proven that adding lanes does not lessen traffic. We need to give people alternative ways to get around. It is ALREADY too late. Cars are obsolete, but our need to get to goods and services will always be important! Think about the health of the city, not about the pockets of your oil-guzzling sponsors! Please! Do it for love!Also, in this tunnel. . . is there any way to filter the poisoned air before it escapes? Maybe a sort of vacuum chamber with industrial filtration systems? |
| 6902 | Camden | Mckone | I am ecstatic about the idea of a freeway lid to reconnect the Albina neighborhood. I am however concerned greatly about the implementation. This project claims to improve conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians and yet it is all still incredibly car dominated. For example the potential for pedestrian/auto conflict at the proposed new I-5 southbound ramp location, which will increase due to the additional traffic at this location. Reconnecting the neighborhood won't be worth anything if the entire is just full of cars on 4 lanes each way roads. Furthermore, I don't have any faith at all that ODOT is genuine with their concern for restorative justice. For one they have not shown any commitment to seeing anything actually gets built on these highway covers. Additionally the freeway capping doesn't actually hae to have anything to do with the awful freeway widening plan. This freeway capping has nothing to do with restorative justice, and everything to with manufacturing consent to widen i5. You can't just say "hey look we had black people design little mosaics to go on the concrete pillars. This is good for the community!" Consider for a second that ODOT may just be stuck in the past where freeway building and expanding was the default answer. |
| 6903 | Grant | Ritchie | I support widening I-5 in the Rose Quarter area as I believe the reduction in idling emissions by improving traffic flow will be an overall benefit. The smooth flow of goods and services is also vital to the economic health of the region. |
| 6904 | Sarah | Crawford | I do not support tolls on any highways, freeways, bridges, or roads. I urge you not to implement tolls. |
| 6905 | Dakota | Schee | It is irresponsible and reprehensible to pour more money into expanding freeways through Black neighborhoods already devastated by the creation of those highways, to ignore Portland s Youth as they demand that money go to better, safer public transit and biking options. More lanes will not solve our traffic issues, and it will only add fuel to the fire of climate disaster. |
| 6906 | Gabrielle | Buckley | We do not need tolls on I-5/ i-205. The state and government already take enough money as it is from our paychecks. Stop trying to take more. |
| 6907 | Christopher | Benz | Hello. I live near the proposed changes to I-5, which will supposedly make my neighborhood safer and my commute faster. I urge you to stop this construction. This expansion is a gift to suburban commuters from Vancouver at the expense of people who actually live in Portland. It will harm my community. We know from extensive studies, including the experience just north of us in Seattle, that expanding highways doesn t change traffic. More drivers will pack the road right up to the exact amount that driving gets annoying. This happens in every city that expands highways. We ll get more cars and the same wait times. Traffic won t change. We will, however, get more pollution, car accidents, and parking problems. Expanding I-5 will not expand feeder streets like Williams and Alberta, where cars leaving and entering the highway enter neighborhoods, or the narrower streets where cars from the highways park. These streets, Williams especially, always have heavy traffic and crowded parking. Even with the current amount of trucks speeding past en route to I-5, I wouldn t feel safe letting a child play in my own neighborhood. The increased traffic from a wider I-5 would make it even worse. A guy from Vancouver returning from the bars recently pounded on my door to borrow a phone, because he d had an argument with his friend and jumped out of the moving car. I ve seen a car, racing to find the highway, crash into my neighbor s parked car and flip upside down. A stunned driver wandered away in the dark. And I ve had to render first aid after a drive-by shooting, which are more common here because of the quick escape to I-5. Faster highways with more vehicles will only exacerbate these problems. Police records, by the way, have shown that shooting violence occurs on the same 2-block microplaces over the years. In the words of the Denver Department of Public Safety, Violence is concentrated in specific places year after year, which strongly suggests that the use of land, the built environment, and place management jointly support violence. A wider I-5 only helps commuters from Vancouver. Actual Portland residents will have to deal with the pollution, noise, parking, and traffic from the increased volume of cars. This money would be better spent on bike lanes, light rail expansion, or better bus service. The money for this construction project would be better not spent at all. Infrastructure incentivizes how cities grow. I-5 expansion will discourage the vibrant, dense, walkable, bikeable communities growing in East Portland. It will only incentivize growth in one place: Washington State. Sincerely,Christopher Benz |
| 6908 | Thomas | DuBuisson | ODOT,> The purpose of the Project is to improve the safetyThen it is unnecessary or this statement is disingenuous. See, for example, your own statistics on this portion of the infrastructure vs any nearby road or transit system. > and operationsThis is too vague to be actionable, let alone justify a multi billion dollar budget and specific actions. Which operations? Why should the community believe these operations are even in their best interests? Looking at the designs, the project is aimed to maintain consistent throughput of traffic in the face of increasing demand. It therefore seems better to remedy the increasing demand such as alternative corridors not running through a busy city, alternative transportation of goods, elimination of ramps, and usage fees. Such an ability to suspend disbelief and propagate an inauthentic plan reminds me of my own time spent in a large Government bureaucracy. It feels better to discuss reality. Get past this, shelve it, and try again with a straightforward framing of the intent from the start. Thomas M. DuBuisson |
| 6909 | Jim | Alder | As a 65 yr resident of Portland, it is time to build the Rose Quarter additional lanes. No, it is way past time. What semi-major city as 2 lanes for the main freeway through the city?Congestion, frustration, zero efficiency are what happen with too little capacity. build those lanes!!!Jim Alder |
| 6910 | Carolyn | Rose | We should definitely have a toll on I-5 and 205 going north from Portland. The people in Portland have tried for years to ease the traffic on the highway between the two states. We tried to work with Washington to build a new bridge, but their congress wasn t willing. We have tried to get a MAX line between the two cities, but the idea was turned down. The Interstate Bridge is over 100 years old and it has had a toll on it before. When it was built in 1917 the toll was 5 cents of each car or horse. The toll lasted until 1929. Portlanders may feel that the folks that shop and work in Portland but live in Washington aren t doing their share for road improvements. A toll on the bridges across the Columbia, is seen as a fair. Maybe there needs to be a third bridge. Whatever is decided, those that use the bridges are the ones who pay. If the toll varies during the day, the traffic in the Rose Quarter may be more even during the day. The same might be true on 205. We live in the Hillsboro are but travel north over the bridges to visit our favorite places in Washington and it is obvious that traffic is heavy going south in the morning and is terrible going north in the afternoon. No wonder people are objecting. Toll the bridges first. Then you won t be tolling local people, who already pay road tax and use local roads to go to work each day. Oregonians seem to object to other tolling because most pay a tax for roads when they buy gas or vote for road improvements. Those who have bought electric cars need to pay their share of the road tax some other way. Tolling isn t seen as a fair way to tax a section of road. That is why the first place tolling should be used is where fairness is obvious, for bridges crossing the Columbia not Portlanders who have already paid for the roads they use every day. Carolyn Rose |
| 6911 | Art | Lewellan | I am vehemently opposed to the Rose Quarter I-5 proposal. That said, here follows my explanation that defends opposition taken by other opponents: Atop my list of metrics to determine merit is public safety and health. This project as proposed is akin to other ODOT proposals. The horrendously high impact SW Corridor widening of STATE HWY 99W to install a MAX light rail in a median. As an advocate for light rail, I regretfully conclude traffic hazards, the number of accidents AND their severity would worsen (more accidents, more passenger, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities). I make that same conclusion in the Rose Quarter widening of I-5. ODOT is also failing the public in its Columbia River I-5 Bridge replacement regarding public safety elements in its design. Taken together, these 3 multi-billion dollar projects warrant a federal investigation of ODOT, WsDOT, PBOT, Metro and Tri-Met alleging the following criminal violations of their duties in public service: intentional misdirection of studies to predetermined outcomes (mostly development), willful concealment of pertinent information from the public (to dismiss concerns about public safety), and were these projects completed as proposed, reckless endangerment and negligent homicide. I do not support extensive developable lids above I-5 through the Rose Quarter. It is a safety hazard for motorists and residents of a potentially growing neighborhood. Motorists at both south and northbound entrances must immediately merge left to access I-5 in fewer seconds that motorists on I-5 must merge right to access I-405 and I-84. THIS IS A TRAFFIC HAZARD. Widening I-5 here increases traffic speeds, thus reducing the time to conduct this hazardous cross-merge. Residents of the area will always face intimidating hazards at on-ramp and off-ramp crosswalks. In the southbound direction, relocating the on-ramp from Wheezer to Weidler is a safety improvement. The new downhill ramp gets motorists up to freeway speed more readily with better visibility. With the current on-ramp, motorists are at the same level and have poor visibility. I am astonished that ODOT now proposes a southbound exit ramp at that location. Even more astonished that the bicyclist Green Loop be located on the heavy traffic corridors of Broadway & Weidler. In the northbound direction, entrance traffic visibility is impaired by freeway lids, thus worsening the cross-merge traffic hazard. This is just plain inexcusable engineering on the part of ODOT. But what the hell. You people don t give a shit about Portland. I ll guess you have MAGA republican resentment of supposedly liberal bastions like Portland. I think of Portland as a politically moderate city, unfortunately run by business interests who love money and power over their fellow humankind. Portland should ve recalled Ted talks too much Wheeler when we had the chance. Kris Strickler and Lynn Peterson should face the criminal charges listed above. Have a nice day, you corporate sellouts. Art Lewellan |
| 6912 | Anonymous | Timestamp: 11/24/2022 12:34:40 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"I think this project is a bad idea. We don't need more expansion on I-5. It's already big enough and horrible enough, and we don't need more expansion. What what we need is more bike infrastructure, not car infrastructure. " | |
| 6913 | Anonymous | "Just to give some input, as far as my feelings go on this project, I live very, very, very close, just a few blocks from where this is going to be, I'm undergoing as far as both highway construction and the overpass, and just wanted to register them very much opposed to it. It seems to be a whole lot of work, a whole lot of money, a whole lot of dislocation for very, very little benefit. Particularly given the fact that it's not going to really increase speed and such on I-405 excuse me, on I-5. So, anyway, just a general negative. I thought this has all been put behind us, and it had already been determined. So, now here it is again. But, anyway, I just feel like it's a waste of money in a waste of time, and that's going to be highly disruptive. " | |
| 6914 | Bjorn | van der Voo | Hello,As a resident of the Arbor Lodge neighborhood in North Portland, I am writing in support of the proposed expansion of Interstate 5 through Portland s Rose Quarter. Daily congestion on I-5 negatively impacts my community. It increases traffic on our side streets, it reduces opportunities to enjoy the neighborhood, and idling vehicles negatively impacts our air quality. This project is also an opportunity to heal the literal and figurative wounds enacted on N/NE Portland. The use of a highway cover is our first real shot to create new land for neighborhood street connections and redevelopment opportunities. For pedestrians, it will also vastly improve the ability to safely navigate this area, and it might even become something it sometimes rarely is - enjoyable to walk around. Thank you for your hard work,Bjorn van der VooNorth Portland |
| 6915 | Tom | "Hey, how you doing, Tom here. Hey, just calling about this ODOT rose Corridor job, you know the state you know doled out the money years ago for the job. And, so, I'm just kind of curious, you know, they've got the money and CDs, taken payments. What are they doing with the money? On Clackamas County, I hear, they won't give you any money except from month to month, they don't dole it out but you know, the state having this, right? Now or if they took all the money, man, what, you know, feds up the interest rate and you're just losing more money. And so I didn't know if, you know, if the people of Oregon was going to be, or I should say, probably metro people, has our government looks at Metro, if we're going to be behind 20 years now instead of 10, you know, kind of like spending money like the wise and the real estate people always look in advance to make more money so you get more money. Thank you again. And I was just wondering if that I-5 job up in Beaverton has anything to do with this other job down there, and if you can intermix, you know, the money kind of like the sewer departments in Metro. You know, you got Tualatin fire department out there, Oregon City, then you got Clackamas Community College out in Washington County. I think you got Portland Community College, wherever you can find an empty place. Thank you. Bye. " | |
| 6916 | Nick | Austin | "Hi, there. This is Nick Austin, and I'm a resident of the Buckman neighborhood in Portland and I drive through the rose quarter area quite frequently, probably daily. And I hope that this project doesn't happen. I think the current situation is more than reasonable, especially once we build the I-5 bridge and toll the I-5 bridge, once we toll these projects. I think we'll see that demand will go down enough to make the project worthwhile, but we know that adding lanes will just create more demand, as you guys are all well aware of induced demand. I'm also dreading the fact that this is going to be a construction nightmare forever, probably like how long you guys think it's going to be like five years. So that will make the next five years of construction awful of driving through there. And that just pushes me on the side streets which I know we don't want. But I hope the project doesn't move forward. Capping it is a valiant effort but not at the cost of like making it that much bigger. Thank you. " |
| 6917 | Julie | Gustafson | I am writing in support of the new aux lanes in the Rose Quarter. I live just off of that exit and have had near collisions on multiple occasions with people weaving on and off the freeway with the connection to I-84 and the Broadway/Weidler corridor. While I am for transportation options, some folks need to drive and we need to make it as safe as possible. Also, anything that might possibly help make things safer during event traffic is a bonus. |
| 6918 | Michael | Harrison | Hello, Elevated bicycle infrastructure (or a bicycle skyway system)can be a part of the i5 improvement project, bikeskyway. org<http://bikeskyway. org> explains more. The e-bike industry is growing, it's projected to reach $54 Billion by 2027,yet we don't really have adequate bicycle infrastructure for this new and emerging transportation. Transportation agencies must take the e-bike and bicycle industry much more seriously. Other cities are already designing and proposing elevated bicycle pathways, planzmiami. com<http://planzmiami. com> . There is enthusiastic public demand for enhanced bicycle infrastructure,bikeskyway. org<http://bikeskyway. org> has more info, images and public video testimony. I'm happy to discuss with you in person in more detail. please let me know your views on this particular issue,thank you for your time,Michael Harrison |
| 6919 | Josh | Flood | Hello, I am writing regarding the proposed expansion of I-5 in the Rose Quarter. As a Portlander who lives just three miles from Harriet Tubman Middle School, regularly drives I-5 through the Rose Quarter, and regularly walks and bikes through the area, I vehemently oppose widening I-5. Study after study has shown that widening highways does not reduce congestion in the long term. Instead, induced demand means that more cars will move through the highway with the same amount of congestion. These additional vehicle miles travelled are ruinous for our environment and for the lungs of all Portlanders, but especially those living, working, and going to school near the highway. To address the climate emergency, we need to do everything we can to discourage people from driving, not adding vehicle capacity in a densely populated downtown area. This is especially true when the project will come with significant costs financially and in the ability to create freeway caps capable of supporting larger buildings. The proposal to cap I-5 and reconnect the Albina neighborhood is admirable, and weakening the ability to build housing and services above the highway reduces the positive impact of the caps. Additionally, the world has changed since these plans were created. Fewer people are commuting. More are commuting at hours other than 9am and 5pm. The state should not be spending the money to widen highways when we don't know what traffic patterns will look like in the future. Finally, we need a robust environmental impact statement that evaluates multiple alternatives, including congestion pricing, as well as evaluating the effects on air pollution in the area. I ask that ODOT build robust highway caps capable of supporting large buildings and absolutely ont widen I-5 in the Rose Quarter. Thank you,Josh Flood97232 |
| 6920 | Timur | Ender | [-Rose Quarter project should involve lids that are buildable (ideally at a minimum of 6 stories) without widening the highway. -Please make all attempts to keep crosswalks open for surface streets along Broadway/Weidler corridor. -Bike infrastructure should involve protected bike lanes and dedicated signals. -Congestion pricing should occur before or at the same time as the project, not at a future date. -ODOT should conduct a full environmental impact statement/assessment (EIS) given the significant nature of this project (my understanding is that at least one school is being relocated due to environmental concerns). -I have concerns that the adjusted southbound I-5 ramp onto N. Williams would represent a deterioration for the biking/walking experience as opposed to keeping it in existing location. -I do appreciate the fact that N. Flint bridge will remain in tact. -Cutting the Clackamas bike/ped bridge from the scope also makes sense as I had a hard time seeing the utility of this bridge as it didn't seem to connect to much on either side. |
| 6921 | Maxwell | Kline | 1. Build lids over the I5, not lanes. 2. Prioritize black albina voices. 3. We need the mandated full EIS that studies alternatives to expansion. 4. We cannot trust ODOT. |
| 6922 | Alex | Keaveney | Don't add more lanes to the Rose Quarter highway. We should build lids and increase investment into the Rose Quarter to improve air pollution levels and walkability. A full EIS should be created to study the impacts and alternative expansion options. ODOT should commit to projects that show Portland is a city of progress. Environmental Justice, walkability, air and water quality: these are all things that need to emphasized in our infrastructure. |
| 6923 | Andrew | Lindstrom | In the new SEA, ODOT scores all intersections in the project area both now, and after the project as the lowest possible stress level for cycling (Active Transport, page 31). I am wondering how this is even possible - in my experience biking through the area right now, it is definitely not fair to say that the corner of Hancock and Flint is the same level of stress as Vancouver and Broadway. I would like to know how these grades were produced, and who is responsible. Referencing the Analysis Procedures Manual Version 2, I find that describing the corner of Vancouver and Broadway as a place where "Traffic speeds are low and there is no more than one lane in each direction" to be patently false. Broadway has 4 lanes (three thru + a turn), Vancouver has 3 lanes (all thru) and there is a freeway off-ramp. I would also like to add, it is incredibly frustrating how difficult it is to parse what any of this means. Referencing an obscure grading system found on page 881/1206 of a technical report is no way to properly inform the public of the effects of a project, even if it were to be done properly (which, I think it has not been). |
| 6924 | Mary | Temple | After reading the Oregonian article dated 11/20/2022, on Rose Quarter freeway tolls, I would like to receive photos if possible of the area that would add auxiliary lanes to widen a 1. 8 mile stretch of the freeway in Central Portland, where three freeways meet and create some of the worst traffic in the state. Thank youMary Temple |
| 6925 | Chris | Carvalho | I regularly travel through the project area for business, recreation, and personal reasons. Nearly all of my travel is by personal auto. I ve lived in the area since 1981 and have seen the area s growth negatively impact traffic, while planners have authorized growth without providing the highway capacity to support it. I am wholeheartedly in support of the I-5 Rose Quarter Project and support building it with the proposed auxiliary lanes as well as the freeway covers to reconnect neighborhoods. Some groups argue that the lanes should not be built. They are ignoring the fact that most people who move to the region have cars and use them for travel. There is no way to provide transit options, bike lanes, or pedestrian facilities that would reduce the number of car trips or even keep them from increasing if more residents arrive to live here. In addition, the growing population places more demand on freight for delivery of goods and services to residents. The highway capacity to support that demand is a requirement to keep our region functioning, it is not optional. Concerns about the project increasing pollution are unfounded. Already, there is a growing number of electric vehicles on the road with zero emissions. By the time the project is completed, urban air quality will be significantly better because of the rapid adoption of electric transportation. There is no way I can use transit to accomplish the travel needs I have. My time is very limited, and transit takes more than double the amount of time to reach my destinations. In addition, I travel very late at night sometimes, when transit options are limited. Much of my work involves hauling tools and traveling to places in the Columbia Gorge for volunteer work. Transit doesn t work for those trips. Besides growing population, another major cause of increased traffic is the lack of affordable housing in the metro area. Working people need to live far from the city in order to find a home they can afford, and that creates longer commute distances and worsens traffic. The region has done very little to address the housing affordability problem, preferring to dump money into transit believing it will fix it. It will not. People should be able to live close to where they work. The region needs to come to grips with this problem and make it easy for people to have a home they want to live in that s close to their job. Until then, upgrading our road system is the only way to reduce the growing frustration people have trying to get to work and to accomplish their daily tasks. Don t believe a vocal minority of mostly wealthy, young, white people who have the luxury of not needing to drive because their privilege lets them live in expensive, walkable neighborhoods while the businesses they patronize have workers who cannot, and must drive from far away to cater to their needs. If our region chooses growth, we must also keep the road system up to date. That s fair, and inclusive to everyone who needs to live and work in the metro area. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Sincerely,Chris Carvalho |
| 6926 | Teddy | Acuna | Hello,We are reaching out with concerns regarding the proposed sound wall designs around Harriet Tubman Middle School (I5 Corridor. ) Specifically in regards to any wall that is planned to be constructed adjacent or in close proximity of the property located at 2125 N Flint Ave, which is owned by Joint Space LLC. It seems based on the pictures that we find on the surveys, that the preliminary studies have incorrectly bundled our property with that of Harriet Tubman Middle School {Attached pictures} and failed to account for any views and windows that the property has on the west side of the property. We are incredibly concerned about the possible obstruction of light and the deterement of our beautiful views. We would like to have our voice heard and would like to understand how to participate in the specifics about the wall design that would surround the property. We would like the wall to stop at our property line and have it run along the school property (so have it take a 90 degree angle prior to our property and run on the south side of the property. This would still protect the school and leave our property with the views of the city that we currently have. We have attached references of the views from the property over the years. Regards,Teddy Acuna, Bethany Foran & Juliana Reyes |
| 6927 | Cadence | Hunsaker | In regards to the expansion of the highway in Albina, I think it's highly irresponsible to tear apart the community there to "help with traffic congestion". Expansion of highways is proven to be ineffective in preventing congestion. It also is counter intuitive to provide more avenues for vehicle carbon emissions when Oregon is trying to get on track to meet the 2050 carbon cap goals. There are plenty of other avenues that could be pursued. The rail plan published in 2020 talks about working on railways to prevent congestion which would be an effective way to do it. But it seems that while the rails lack funding, ODOT is willing to shell out money to highways that will ultimately cause more harm then good. Please reconsider this project and invest in other forms of accessibility for residents. |
| 6928 | Richard | Hartman | After driving from Portland to San Diego to Oakland for Thanksgiving, I am more convinced than ever that the I-5 corridor must be expanded. It is a major conduit for commerce on the West Coast and I believe that air pollution will be less if one could travel from Battle Ground to Wilsonville in less than an hour as opposed to two or more hours to travel the same distance. As to the argument that it will invite more traffic to Portland, I believe people will move to Portland with their cars. So unless you could convince them to not bring their cars with them, it is a lost cause. |
| 6929 | Joe | Cortright | How wide (in feet) is the distance between retaining walls for the proposed I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project between N. Hancock Street and N. Wheeler Avenue? Please report your answer for each 100 to 200 feet of freeway centerline distance. |
| 6930 | Juliana | Reyes | Hi there,Please find attached my voice corresponding to the I-5 ROSE QUARTER PROJECT,Thanks! JULIANA REYES Dear I-5 Rose Quarter Team,We're deeply concerned by the communication you sent regarding the proposed sound wall designs around Harriet Tubman Middle School (I5 Corridor) and want to express our profound dissatisfaction with the proposal. I work at Joint Space, a co-working space located next to the [Redacted] I've been happily working here since 2010, and I know this building has been here for a longtime. It is a great office with natural light and an excellent location. It seems that the preliminary studies have mistakenly grouped the 2125 N Flint Ave property with that of Harriet Tubman Middle School, failing to account for any views and windows that the property has on the west side. Our primary source of natural light in the building. Here are pictures from my workspace:[Redacted]My goal with this letter is to ensure you are aware of our concerns and the impact on the 2125 N Flint property of the proposal. I'm incredibly concernedabout the possible obstruction of light in the building and its adverse effects on our working environment and the businesses here. I'd like to have my voice heard and understand how to participate in the design specifics of the wall design surrounding the property to ensure the project does not negatively impact us. I'm confident that with the help of a talented project team, as you all are, we'll be able to arrive at a proper design that doesn't block our view or reduce the natural light in our space. Thank you for your commitment and collaboration in this important issue. Sincerely,JULIANA REYES |
| 6931 | Megan | Horst | I ride my bike in this area every day, en route from my home in NE Portland to my job downtown. I do not think this project has the best interests of Portlanders or that the analysis fully considers the environmental impacts. My viewpoints are that:1. I am in full support of the proposed freeway caps over I-5 included in Hybrid 3. This is what ODOT owes the neighborhood, after polluting it for decades, and it should not come with strings attached. 2. There needs to be a full EIS to examine the impacts to people walking, biking, and getting around in wheelchairs in the area, and to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Most importantly, we should be fully assessing the impacts to the health of children. 3. ODOR cannot be trusted with prioritizing the environment, health, or in spending money efficiently. In 2022, with everything we know about climate change, it is reckless to expand freeways and spend all the money on cars. |
| 6932 | Keith | Liden | Nice sales brochure. This project is nothing more than a Trojan horse. We'll provide these cool things if you let us continue on our endless quest to create more freeway capacity. I'm OPPOSED to this project (although the cap alone would be fine) for the following reasons:COST - I find it interesting that the astronomical cost of this project isn't mentioned anywhere. Just think of all the good we could do to improve transportation system safety with $1 - $2 billion! At best, this will be a marginal improvement over existing conditions, and it will be a colossal waste of taxpayer money. CONGESTION SHIFT - If this project eases congestion in the project area as claimed, getting more vehicles through this segment at a faster rate will only mean increased congestion in downstream locations that are already stressed like I-84 EB, I-5 NB and SB, I-405, and 26. ODOT will then be looking for more billions to fix them next, and on it goes to infinity. . . OVERSTATING THE PROBLEM - The materials state this is "one of the top freight bottlenecks in the nation" as if this is a uniquely unacceptable condition. Really? Every major city I've been to has the same problems. How big is the "top" list? The top 1,000? The crash rate is highlighted but not the fact that there are many more portions of the state system yielding higher injury and fatality rates. Motorist delay and auto body work is prioritized over injuries and deaths for determining where ODOT wants to spend its money. TRADING EXISTING ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEMS FOR NEW ONES - Obviously going through this area today on foot or bike isn't great, and improvements would be welcome. However, the proposed system eliminates some problems only to create new modal conflicts and potential problem intersections. This is the unfortunate result of designing the system first for cars and active transportation second. |
| 6933 | Glen | Myers | I am in favor of the proposals. The current narrowing of I-5 to two lanes leads to major traffic congestion. Auto travel will be essential for the foreseeable future, and thus, at the minimum, modest projects to improve auto travel are necessary investments. Glen Myers |
| 6934 | Amy | Alt | I think this is great! I use this everyday to get to work and the bottleneck is there no matter what time of day or what day of the week you are travelling on it. It backs up especially when there is an event at the moda center and causes huge traffic jams. I love adding another lane for through traffic. |
| 6935 | Kevin | Lally | Hello ODOT,I am so happy this project is happening and look forward to seeing how it improves the community. My one big critique would be to please not add another lane to I-5. Research shows adding another lane increases demand and therefore is not a traffic solution. Those dollars could be better spent on bettering our community s public transportation options to decrease the amount of carbon emissions breathed in in our community. Thank you for reading and again - I look forward to the I-5 lid, but please do not add another lane. Your neighbor,Kevin |
| 6936 | Bethany | Foran | Hello,I am reaching out with regards to the sound wall going up on the west side of my office property. This wall will cause almost all of the light in the building to go away and also get rid of the one view we have from the building - I don't think our small office was taken into consideration when the sound wall was designed. We would like to propose that the wall not cover the windows on that side of the building and rather end prior to getting to our building so that we can still have light and the view from our place of work. I have attached photos over the years of the view that we currently have - the proposed wall would go up to the top of the current windows in place on the building. Thanks, Bethany |
| 6938 | Margery | Mayock | Hi!I am against the I5 Rose Quarter improvement project . I am sure that you have heard my objections from many other citizens, but I just wanted to be counted as another voice against. Please try to do what is right. Thank you,Margery Mayock |
| 6940 | Christopher | Draus | Get developers to pay to:Cap and widen the freeway and then give them the rights to develop on top of that cap, in order to restore the Albina neighborhood. Christopher DrausSent from da fone |
| 6941 | Jonathan | Greenwood | Subject: Virtual public hearingHello,I got an email about the Virtual Public Hearing for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project on December 14. I would prefer to provide an email statement, but I'm wondering which email I send this to and the format required. Thank you,Jonathan Greenwood |
| 6944 | Jonathan | Greenwood | Hello,I d just like to state that I do not support widening the freeway at all. That will just leave us back at square one due to induced demand. There would be the same amount of congestion because more people would see the freeway as an option to use. This will lead to tons of pollution being spewed on communities that have a long history of being discriminated against and even ongoing into today as is obvious with this plan to widen a freeway in their communities. This is adding insult to injury. Further, I only support a cap over the freeway so dense housing could be built to help keep people from being displaced due to our city s housing shortage. Again, do not widen the freeway as it is a waste of money; only cap it so housing can be built over the existing, unwidened freeway. Thank you,Jonathan Greenwood |
| 6945 | Dave | Farmer | Rose Quater comments--- from Dave Farmer. Safety is a priority for everyone. Speeding is a major concern, so I feel this entire area should have full time speed monitoring (including citations) in place. 24 hours per every day. This can be accomplished with radar or using the Toll System when it is in use. The Toll System will provide, distance traveled, time for distance, and positive Photo ID of all vehicles. Equals MPH. Both of these choices will be relatively inexpensive (especially the Toll system). Unnecessary, unsafe lane changes could be monitored with cameras and solid lane line painting. No Lane Changes. Highway covers are not affordable. Where is the money coming from? The Native Americans should be considered in all of this. They had all of their land stolen, so they can't work or live or have their culture preserved. Every dollar spent on a cover should be matched by money mitigating the loss to the Native Americans. A significant portion of the affordable housing should be reserved for them. I object to ANY of my taxes or tolls I will have to pay to build or Subsidize covers. Because my religion is zero gambling. And NO consumption of any alcohol on public property. My constitutional rights should allow me and everyone who has this religious belief to be exempted from paying tolls. Unless the entire cap is no gambling and no alcohol drinking. A Class Action Lawsuit will be started. It is not fair to people who believe like I do, to have their toll money spent directly on the covers if any business or venue or park allows gambling or alcohol consumption. A restaurant does not have to serve alcohol. I have concerns for the people living or just being on the covers. Has this hazard been studied enough?? That many vehicles emit a lot of exhaust. At least one bike-ped overpass should be replaced by a tunnel which will be more resistant to a earthquake. Having tolls on I- 205 and none on I - 5 for a period of several or many months will divert many vehicles (especially big trucks that will pay high tolls) ontoI - 5. Once a driver decides on which freeway to use at north or south end of I - 205, you are mostly committed to follow to the end. There is no practical route that can change that. A more congested I - 5 causes more pollution, traffic jams, safety issues and hardship for drivers on I - 5, and more diversion to side streets, which hurts those neighborhoods, both homes and businesses. Please consider not building the unaffordable, dangerous to breathe on, and not equitable to Native Americans cover. Thanks Dave Farmer |
| 6947 | Betsy | Dutton | It is an incredibly poor thought process to force tolls on roads where there is no other option to cross the river. Additionally, forcing drivers to stop, idle, look for change they don't have during rush hour isn't going to fix ANY problems; rather, it will cause long rush hours, financial hardship, MORE pollution, an increase in accidents, an increase in insurance and medical costs and most importantly loss of productivity and wages for those who may be fined or even fired because they were stuck in a traffic nightmare they have NO means to avoid. Are you truly trying to make things better? It seems more like you are trying to line coffers at the expense of drivers?TOLLS ARE NOT GOING TO SOLVE ANYTHING! |
| 6948 | Michelle | DuBarry | To Whom it May Concern:I am writing on behalf of Oregon and Southwest Washington Families for Safe Streets with comment on the I-5 Rose Quarter project. Our letter is attached. Thank you,Michelle DuBarryOR and SW Washington Families for Safe StreetsDecember 12, 2022Oregon Department of TransportationAttn: Megan Channell, 1-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Manager888 SW 5th Ave, Suite 600Portland, OR 97204Dear Ms. Channell:As people who have been injured, and families of people (mostly children) killed on Oregonroadways, we are urging the Oregon Department of Transportation to reconsider its decision toadd lanes to the Interstate-5 highway as part of the 1-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. Weare concerned that the expansion of 1-5 will invite more noise, pollution, death, and injury tothe surrounding community. At minimum, we urge the Department to conduct a fullEnvironmental Impact Statement, and refocus project priorities to center safe transportationfor all Oregonians (including non-drivers) and healing the Albina neighborhood that was tornapart by this freeway 60 years ago. Families for Safe Streets supports investment in the Albina neighborhood, including theproposed freeway caps included in Hybrid 3, as well as affordable housing andbicycle/pedestrian safety infrastructure on surface streets. We believe these components canand should be accomplished without expanding the freeway. I joined Families for Safe Streets because my son Seamus was killed on an ODOT road thatlacked proper pedestrian safety infrastructure in 2010. His brother and sister (aged 10) don'tdrive, but they do breathe, commute to school, play, and enjoy the beauty and bounty of thePacific Northwest. Families for Safe Streets does not accept the deaths and injuries of our lovedones, the poisoning of the air, or the destruction of our planet as acceptable trade offs for fasterfreight transport or convenience of motorists. An EIS is a critical component of accountabilitythat will ensure our tax dollars are not worsening the twin crises of traffic violence and climatechange. Sincerely,Michelle DuBarryOregon and Southwest Washington Families for Safe Streets |
| 6949 | Joseph | Cortright | Thank you for your reply. Please provide a scale plan drawing showing the roadway, as well as all on- and-off ramps between N. Hancock and N. Wheeler. |
| 6950 | James | Sedgwick | We need to have improvements to the I-5 and I 84 highways . There is much more traffic on the highways than 25 years ago. It is not only local people commuting to work, but more truck traffic delivering products that not only Oregonian s but Washington and California products as well. Build the interchange . We don t need more years of studies and committee s to meet and argue over building it. Traffic in PDX metro area is very congested, causing more delays in getting from one point to another. NO, mass transportation ie. busses or light rail will solve this problem. Build the interchange. Thank youJames SedgwickBeaverton |
| 6951 | Carl | Hoogesteger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: No more lanes. Conduct an EIS. The proposed expansion would increase pollution, it goes against any climate goals, it also won't fix congestion, re: concern about congestion toll the freeway and invest in public transit and walking and biking, thanks |
| 6952 | Jeremiah | Hayden | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We can be so much more creative than this in how we adapt to the climate crisis. There is no reason to spend this money on one freeway expansion, when that money could be allocated to projects that have a far lesser impact on the environment. We have to know what the stakes are, and what the consequences will be before we can move forward. Please conduct an Environmental Impact Statement. |
| 6953 | Terry | Parker | To the I-5 Rose Quarter Project Team,To start with, it seems that the motorists who use I-5 and who are expected to pay for any improvements in the Rose Quarter have the least amount of public representation associated with this project. Even though nearly 80% of the trips in the Portland-Metro are made by motor vehicle, motorists also seem to be the last to be heard if they are listened to if at all. Fixing I-5 in the Rose Quarter so traffic flows better is long over do. Better traffic flow and less congestion equates to less fuel consumption and emissions. If the weave lanes work to reduce traffic backups and congestion in the same way they have since added to I-205, the project is more than worthwhile. Furthermore, and I have stated this before, the underlying cause of climate change is population growth and the unsustainable over human population of the planet. This is especially relevant as it applies to moving traffic through high density urban areas such as on I-5. Yet most political leaders fail to even direct any attention to the subject of population growth and how it affects climate change. They seem to think that population growth is needed for growth in the economy. The backlash here is the growth of tents lining sidewalks, the need for more social services and a high rate of inflation for everybody else. History clearly demonstrates higher rates of personal mobility (such as driving) significantly contributes to greater economic productivity which in turn generates family wage jobs. What I object to is the financing method on how to pay for the I-5 improvements in the Rose Quarter. Motorists already pay for the roads with fuel taxes, registration and license fees. Now you want to extort more dollars from drivers with an inflationary tolling scheme all while still extorting, fleecing and skimming off motorist paid roadway dollars to fund infrastructure specifically designed for the alternative mode users that in no way pay their share for what they utilize. This is a form of autocratic social engineering,As an example, lip service only freeloading bicyclists need to start accepting the financial accountability for the privileged infrastructure they utilize. This must include all the bicycle infrastructure on the surface streets, over crossings and especially the bicycle bridge that are part of the Rose Quarter Improvement Project. This can get started by requiring bicyclists to pay license and registration fees. Given the millions and millions of dollars being spent on bicycle specific infrastructure, the suggestion that most bicyclists have cars and therefore pay their share is old school and out dated. Transport revenue does not come from cars that are parked and many bicyclists do not have a car. Maybe it should be the bicyclists that are being tolled, maybe even to help fund the I-5 highway improvements in that such improvements are likely to reduce traffic congestion on the surface streets thereby making it safer for bicycling. Respectfully submitted. Terry Parker (retired senior citizen)Portland |
| 6954 | Donald | Winn | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT needs to conduct an Env Imp Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion so everyone can see the terrible extra pollution that will befall all those who live near the freeway, not to mention the extra negative effect on climate pollution in general. $2 BILLION is already planned for the I-5 bridge replacement; we don t need to waste another BILLION on this expansion! |
| 6955 | Injoong | Yoon | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,Portland does not need more freeway lanes! ODOT must conduct a new environmental impact study looking into the many safer, cleaner, healthier, and less expensive ways to address traffic concerns. Please address tolling. Specifically, ODOT's concerns about interstate and long-distance travel could be addressed with tolling to reduce congestion from local travel, which does not need to use the freeway to make everyday short trips (e. g. by tolling on and/or off ramps in the Portland area). They could also be addressed by working to put more funding into transit and other transportation options to discourage Portlanders from using I-5 for many local trips. It is also vital that ODOT address the overwhelming evidence of induced freeway demand and increased traffic emissions on the environment and surrounding communities. Freeways are suffocating the potential of the inner Eastside communities where we need more - not less - housing, schools, and economic activity. Portlanders are asking you not to expand this freeway into our communities. Please study and implement the alternatives. Sincerely,Injoong Yoon |
| 6956 | Harlan | Shober | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Without a full EIS and an adequate public comment period (90 day minimum) we risk settling on a design that, while it benefits certain special interest groups, is damaging to communities and climate. Too often, big projects are planned without involving the real stakeholders. Don't be secretive. This needs to be an open and transparent process. Start with a complete EIS. |
| 6957 | Janice | Rose | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It's a known fact that the more lanes you build, the more cars that will come until they are ALL filled up again. And then, you will want to build even MORE freeway lanes. Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/ |
| 6958 | Allan | Rudwick | Hi there,I just got a zoom link for the hearing Wednesday. Is this a link that will let me talk or just listen? What time would I be talking? There is a PTA meeting that I need to attend starting at 5:30, is it possible to speak earlier than that?Thank you for your helpAllan RudwickEliot NA land use chair |
| 6959 | Kathryn | Sundermann | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT should make decisions based on public safety and those decisions should reflect the will of the people. This freeway expansion has been opposed from the start. Our health and the air we breathe should be the most important criteria. Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/ |
| 6960 | Cory | Knoblauch | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident along the I5 corridor and an environmental scientist, I am concerned about the highway expansion project. As a bike commuter and resident who walks and bikes in the neighborhood, I would greatly appreciate Portland to conduct an EIS for this project. Please contact me with any questions. |
| 6961 | Gina | Roberti | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident along the I5 corridor and an environmental scientist, I am concerned about the highway expansion project. As a bike commuter and resident who walks and bikes in the neighborhood, I would greatly appreciate Portland to conduct an EIS for this project. Please contact me with any questions. |
| 6962 | Diana | Holland | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are so many equity issues here. Studies have shown that pollution from automotive traffic causes health problems for people who live near those roads. Not only gas pollution but also particulate matter from pressing brakes on heavy electric cars. So this problem does not go away in our electric future. We also know from studies and common sense that traffic pollution disproportionally affects low income people, since those are the communities who live in neighborhoods near roads and freeways. People who live in freeway dominated areas are also more likely to be non-white, in poverty, not own a car, and not use the freeway. So the people being displaced or sickened by the freeway expansion are not even the people who would "benefit" from more lanes. Besides the health and community risks here, there's also there's no congestion reduction. Studies show that more lanes means more traffic because of induced demand. Near this particular freeway which cuts through the historic Albina district, hundreds of homes owned by Black families were already demolished to build the freeway and theoretical hospital expansion. More freeway lanes would mean more homes demolished, more families displaced, and because this proposal only includes a partial cap: more adverse impacts from pollution. I wholly disagree with the freeway expansion because I don't think it solves the problem it's trying to solve. And instead adds more problems, particularly for low income people of color who aren't major freeway users. But if there's going to be an expansion, let's at least understand what the impacts are. ODOT needs to conduct an environment impact statement because the public has the right to know what impact this plan has on the place we live. Also I think it's the law, and if I have to follow the law then state departments should have to as well. |
| 6963 | Quinn | Rivenburgh | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Has nothing changed since the 1970s urban renewal? This is a clear targeting of communities of color. Furthermore, expanding freeways during climate catastrophe is the wrong direction. It is necessary that an EIS be completed to document and catalogue the devastating affects this would have on Albina and all of Portland. |
| 6964 | Tristan | D Powell | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I strongly oppose continued investment in widening freeways. This money would be better spent getting people out of cars altogether through safer, faster, cleaner transit options, and through making walking and biking safer and easier. Walkable and multi-use zones with fewer cars lead to increased business activity and improved indicators of well-being and livability. It s time to stop subsidizing polluting, isolating and ugly car infrastructure! |
| 6965 | John | Charles | Subject: December 14 hearingDear Ms. Gerber,What is the legal basis for using race as a means to determine who speaks first at next week's meeting on the I-5 RQ EIS? I was under the impression that Oregon state agencies were prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race. Thank you for your assistance. John CharlesCascade Policy Institute |
| 6966 | Jonah | Ollman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This project is the definition of short-sighted. It's 2022. We all know that climate change is rapidly making our world less livable and that transportation infrastructure is a large contributor to air pollution and climate change. Widening the freeway sounds like a good solution for the next 5 years, but we should be thinking about the next 50 years. We should maintain our existing freeways, while investing dramatically in public transportation, bicycle infrastructure, and alternative solutions to get as many commuters off the freeway as possible. We shouldn't be investing in the past. We need to look towards the future. Freeways are not the future we need. And, it should go without saying, studies have shown that widening freeways does not improve traffic meaningfully. It's a very short-term band-aid fix, not a sustainable improvement. |
| 6967 | Trevor | Davis | To Whom It May Concern,My name is Trevor Davis and I work at the property (2125 N Flint Ave. Portland, OR 97227) located directly south of Harriett Tubman Middle School. I would like to bring up a concern shared by myself and the other tenants in the building. The concern is specifically about the noise barrier "Wall 2" represented in section "7. 1. 2 Wall 2: Receivers 4 through 6" in the "Noise Study Supplemental Technical Report" by Oregon Department of Transportation (June 21, 2022). 7. 1. 2 Wall 2: Receivers 4 through 6A 1,456-foot-long noise barrier was evaluated to shield these receivers from freeway noise. See Table D2 in Appendix D for details and Figure 28 for the location of Wall 2. The wall was analyzed for several different wall heights between 10 and 16 feet for feasibility and reasonableness and shows that Wall 2, at 12-feet in height, would achieve the minimum noise reduction goals, including one property with a design goal noise reduction of more than 7 dBA (in this case 10 dBA at R5) plus one additional benefitted property. The calculated cost of the mitigation ($7,795 per benefitted residence) is less than the allowable $37,500 per benefitted residence. Because the barrier would be feasible and reasonable, it is recommended for inclusion in the Project. - If I am reading that section correctly, the building located at 2125 N Flint Ave. would be considered the "one additional benefitted property" in this statement:"The wall was analyzed for several different wall heights between 10 and 16 feet for feasibility and reasonableness and shows that Wall 2, at 12-feet in height, would achieve the minimum noise reduction goals, including one property with a design goal noise reduction of more than 7 dBA (in this case 10 dBA at R5) plus one additional benefitted property. "- In Figure 28 it would be the building behind the extension of Wall 2 south of Harriett Tubman Middle School (circled in blue). Fig. 28[image. png]- From Table 4 in Section 6. 1. 2 we are assuming that the data on noise level and changes in noise levels would be similar to that of Receiver Monitoring Location "R5" (Harriett Tubman School Interior). 6. 1. 2 Table 4[Pasted Graphic 1. png]- The ODOT NAAC (dBA) is at 50- Current dBA would be 49- The Revised Build Alternative (without Wall 2) would add 1 dB to be equal with the NAAC at 50. Description of the Building at 2125 N Flint Ave:- Office building- Intermittently occupied- Occupied on average 8 consecutive hours or less at a time- Only Interior use, no exterior useConclusion/Concern:The tenants and owners of building 2125 N Flint Ave. believe that Wall 2 would have more negative impacts than positive impacts. We would much prefer that the wall end at Harriett Tubman Middle School and not continue on to benefit this building. Reasons:- The extension of Wall 2 beyond Harriett Tubman Middle School would eliminate our view and render this large window useless. [image. png]- The extended part of Wall 2 beyond Harriett Tubman Middle School would create a dead space between the wall and the building, effectively creating an alleyway. - The amount of natural light in our building would be greatly impacted in a negative way. - Eliminating this benefitted residence from the Noise Barrier Wall 2 Project would save costs. --Salutations,~Trevor Alton Davis |
| 6968 | Chris | Berrir | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT s Supplemental Environmental Assessment (EA) ignores the needs and opposition of the community regarding the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. ODOT has also ignored repeated requests to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed freeway expansion. ODOT s insistence on pushing this freeway expansion through demonstrates a callous disregard for the legacy of disenfranchisement that has been perpetrated on the most marginalized members of our communities. In the past, hundreds of families were forced out of their homes, businesses and churches to make way for more freeways and corporate development. A lawsuit filed in April 2021 asserts that ODOT failed to:1) fully follow standards established by the National Environmental Protection Act2) study alternatives to expansion, including the possibility of implementing congestion pricing without adding new lanes of freeway,3) study the cumulative impacts of their proposed freeway expansions across the region4) provide the necessary data requested by interested parties Thanks to concerned citizens raising their voices, ODOT rescinded the proposal and is now asking for public comments on a modified Supplemental Environmental Assessment. My comments are that steps 1-4 listed above be implemented with due diligence and all feasible alternatives to building more freeways be explored before further action is taken. |
| 6969 | Allan | Rudwick | Hi there-I just noticed that the meeting goes until 7:30 so I should be able to make it before the end of the meeting in time to talkThank youAllan |
| 6970 | Franco | Ortega | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I support the efforts of Albina Vision Trust and the Historic Albina Advisory Committee to move forward with caps over the Interstate that will reconnect a community torn apart by racist freeway expansion in a previous century, but I want these excellent plans for restorative justice to the Albina Neighborhood to be decoupled from their efforts to add additional lanes of freeway that will clog the streets with cars and the air with pollution. Also, I want to see an Environmental Impact Statement that thoroughly studies alternatives to expansion. |
| 6971 | Noelle | Studer-Spevak | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,I formerly lived between Peninsula Park and I-5 in North Portland, and I can tell you that the air pollution was intense for me and my family. We were fortunate to be in the financial position to move away from the freeway, but many people are not. Induced demand is like a scientific law of transportation planning. Adding lanes is not a solution to decreasing congestion. We WANT congestion because it makes people think twice about where they live in relationship to work, and how they get there. The goal is not to move more vehicles faster through an area. The goal is to reduce the amount of cars on the road. It is not okay to build new freeway infrastructure that harms our children's chances at surviving climate change. Yes, we want I-5 to be covered and reconnect this historically important neighborhood that suffered racial harm. But we do not want more lanes. Thank you for your time. |
| 6972 | Phil | Houston Goldsmith | Subject : Supplemental EA public comment period: Lids not Lanes and a full EIS for Rose Quarter |
| 6973 | Diana | Oxley | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The planning for this freeway expansion is based on shortsighted thinking and too little consideration for today's urgent issues: congestion and pollution relief not through wider roads but through better, more efficient public systems of transportation. Make the freeway better with smoother pavement and safer access/exit ramps and then address the pollution-lowering needs: bicycle paths, bus lanes, train lines. Multnomah Blvd is a good example of this: it was revamped a few years ago to keep the existing 2-land road and instead add wider sidewalks and bike lanes. As a result it has become a more human-friendly route. ________________________________Time: December 15, 2022 at 5:45 amIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/ |
| 6974 | Philip | Ratcliff | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion doesn't pass the smell test. An ODOT Environmental Impact Statement must be produced, at the very least. ________________________________Time: December 14, 2022 at 10:46 pmIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/Sent by an unverified visitor to your site. |
| 6975 | Justin | Sikkema | Dear ODOT,My name is Justin Sikkema and I live in SW Portland. I, among many other people, am deeply concerned about the Rose Quarter project. Though there are aspects to the plan that I deeply like (upgraded side walks and bike lanes), I am deeply concerned with any expansion to the freeway. I am also deeply concerned that a full EIS (rather than a supplemental EA) is not being conducted. I am also concerned about the amount of opposition to this project. As I understand 90% of the public comments to the original EA were negative. I hope you take more time to consider how this project will impact both communities and the natural environment. I personally feel deeply opposed to this project and I hope that ODOT reconsiders. Thank you for your time,Justin Sikkema |
| 6976 | Diane | Meisenhelter | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I ve lived in inner NE for 34 years and as a senior with respiratory issues, totally oppose freeway expansion in our neighborhood already burdened by excessive pollution. Dire predictions issued this spring by the world s best climate scientists indicate that if we do not cut emissions in half by 2030 millions of people and species will experience unthinkable consequences. The last thing we need to be doing is expanding freeways when transportation funds could be better used to reduce or eliminatr transit fares and expand mass transit. ODOT has not first tried congestion pricing or studied alternatives and given the numerous violations of public trust, lack of basic transparency and outrageous disregard for public accountability, we find it hard to believe with good faith their claims that they can't pursue alternatives. Frontline communities suffer the most from climate chaos as we ve already witnessed. The most recent EPA National Air Toxicity assessment, shows I-5 and I-205 among the most dangerously polluting highways in the US and the Cascadia Action Environmental Justice Report documents the severe health inequity impacts from these highways and an over-concentration of polluting industries in N/NE Portland. Given the history of disruption and displacement from the freeways in N/NE Portland, reparations should be made and jobs created by capping the I-5 corridor as proposed by the Albina community without expanding the lanes or traffic and certainly not to the insane 160ft. wide being proposed. Instead ODOT should be looking for ways to mitigate the pollution affecting surrounding neighborhoods and not displacing schools. ODOT needs to conduct a full Environmental Impact Analysis for the proposed Rose Quarter expansion. A modified EA is insufficient. Their assessment needs to take into account the multiple freeway expansions being proposed and their impacts on each other and our communities. Each additional mile of new highway lane will increase CO2 emissions by more than 100-186K tons over the timeframe we have to get to zero emissions and multiple studies show that expanding freeways adds to induced demand and does not reduce congestion. This is a costly project that will literally lead us further into climate hell while they try to greenwash the proposed expansions. Do the right thing. ________________________________Time: December 15, 2022 at 4:09 pmIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/ |
| 6977 | Karen | Wolfgang | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT is the agency with access to the most/best information about this project, and it is shameful that it hasn't made it the highest priority to share it in the service of making a long-term investment that best serves the state and the region. Especially with the IBR project just up the highway from the Rose Quarter, these projects should both be examined closely, in concert, by a wide range of stakeholders. . . with the foundation of accurate information in place. In this context, despite repeated public input, ODOT still has done absolutely nothing to address concerns about the dangerous impacts of the additional lanes of freeway and the congestion it will bring to our streets, the air pollution it will bring to our lungs, and the carbon emissions that it will add to our alarmingly warming planet. I support the call to heal the neighborhood previously torn apart by ODOT freeway construction sixty years ago, which would involve investment in the Albina neighborhood including the freeway lids, affordable housing and safer streets without also adding additional cars and air pollution into the neighborhood brought about by significant freeway expansion below the surface level streets. We can DO this. But it takes all parties working collaboratively, sharing what we know and what we are committed to, and creating a way forward together. ________________________________Time: December 15, 2022 at 1:46 pmIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/Sent by a verified WordPress. com user. |
| 6978 | Andrew | Kreider Glick | I am strongly against the auxiliary lanes in the current proposal. Any amount of money invested in more pavement while knowing about the climate crisis is unacceptable - We must be investing in public transit, not making it easier for cars to pollute. More concretely, I support the need for a full Environmental Impact Statement to study alternatives to expansion, such as congestion tolling. |
| 6979 | Philip | Longenecker | I do not want ODOT to build auxiliary lanes. I do not care about slightly longer travel times on I-5. Building more lanes will only temporarily reduce congestion, which will increase again after induced demand. We need to spend this money on increasing transit, biking, and walking infrastructure. The cost and carbon impact of this project are not worth it. |
| 6980 | Daniel | Davis | There is NO GOOD REASON to add more freeway lanes here. We've known for a long time extra lanes causes induced demand and solves nothing. It's super easy to get around Portland with any other option. (bikes, trains, buses, etc). More lanes means more cars. More cars means more collisions, more pollution, more pollution associated health conditions. ODOT has demonstrated a lack of moral compass when pushing this project. They have left key information out of their public records There have even had legal action taken against them. ODOT not a trustworthy public agency and this project should be scrapped and ODOTs leadership should be replaced. The only correct sustainable option here would be to institute a congestion charge on cars entering Portland. No charge if there is no demand. If there is a demand then tolls increase to keep traffic moving. The charge could be reduced or eliminated for individuals with financial distress. Portland is the sustainable city in the USA. The rest of the USA looks toward Portland to develop best practice in sustainable transportation options. Be better. #NoMoreRoads. https://bikeportland. org/2022/09/28/judge-rules-against-oregon-department-of-transportation-in-public-records-case-364336 |
| 6981 | Trask | Owen Colby | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is ridiculous in a state that prides itself on its forward-thinking about the environment, from protecting our beaches, our rivers, and our air, that a new freeway seems to be a solution to anything. This is nothing but a continued travesty towards the communities that live near I-5. The only work that should be done on I-5 should be work directed toward repairing the land and the community. Expanding a freeway DOES NOT repair, it only further divides. Complete an EIS, and make it clear the ways you are hurting our state, city, people and environment. |
| 6982 | Emmett | Copeland | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: While traffic may be annoying, continuing down a car centric path is getting us further from the energy efficient future we need to pursue. |
| 6983 | Tony | Tapay | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: How can we even consider this multi-billion dollar freeway expansion without doing an EIS? Continuing to expand highways is to double down on a transportation system that is a money pit and environmental disaster. There is no making this project acceptable by sprinkling it with buzzwords and nods to "equity. " There is no greenwashing this. Electric cars, with their massive levels of embodied carbon will not fix this. We will remember those who fought for more lanes. Your children and grandchildren will be ashamed. |
| 6984 | Wendy | Emerson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I believe that if an honest environmental assessment is done for this project, that it will be abandoned. Oh wait a minute. I forgot that I live in a place where all of the public officials are in the pockets of the automobile and fossil fuel industries; where in spite of clear evidence that we should be doing everything we can to move people out of the private automobile and into healthier and more sustainable forms of transport, elected officials and corrupt state highway departments seek to expand freeways. |
| 6985 | Frank | Pacosa | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand an EIS for Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Making more lanes will NOT improve traffic. It WILL cause more climate pollution. I am a 45-year resident of the Portland Metropolitan area. We need more public pollution-saving transit than we need solo polluting car transportation improvement. Please make wise long term decisions so my children and grandchildren can live in a healthy world. EIS EIS EIS |
| 6986 | Dale | Steele | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway widening is not a solution, it increases the problems of air quality, noise, safety and more and all while we are in a climate emergency that transportation is a major cause. All of these impacts must be adequately assessed and addressed and would result in costs to the public. I walk and bike in SE and NE Portland on a regular basis and more people would do so with better infrastructure and safety. Widening this freeway would not encourage people to make more use of active and public transportation and sends the wrong message to what is needed. I worked in environmental planning for transportation in the 1980s-90s and this proposed project seems like something from that era before we had the information we have now. It also looks like the 2019 lawsuit that stopped an earlier poorly planned or evaluated project. A full EIS needs to be done with full assessment and mitigation for the health, environment and climate impacts that would be worsened by this project. A full and fair evaluation of alternatives that would have fewer negative impacts and more positive results must be included. Dale Steele |
| 6987 | Lucy | Corbett | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This project will have a negative climate impact. Transportation is already the biggest source of carbon emissions in Oregon. By widening the freeway, people will drive more frequently and more freight traffic will be induced to travel through the central city. This increase in vehicle miles traveled will directly contribute to more harmful greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. ODOT has a responsibility to better evaluate the environmental impact these actions will have on future generations of Oregonians that will be most impacted by climate change. |
| 6988 | Esther | Harlow | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Climate change is the single biggest issue facing the entire human race and many other species. ODOT should not move forward on freeway expansion. |
| 6989 | Robert | Wallis | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am hoping it illuminates the fact that the many flaws associated with the current proposal, particularly those related to the long-term health impacts the project will have on the region, the true social justice implications, and the safety issues associated with deficient design elements. |
| 6991 | Dan | Hoyt | After spending $1,000,000,000+ and half a decade or more disrupting travel and creating tons of pollution we will be disappointed with the results. We don't need a bigger freeway or a "lid. " Let's spend the time and money on something to be proud of. |
| 6992 | Karina | Kreider Glick | I do not support the auxiliary lanes in the current proposal. Encouraging the use of cars is unacceptable knowing that cars are a top contributor to the climate crisis. There needs to be a full Environmental Impact Statement to study alternatives to expansion. |
| 6993 | Philip | Ratcliff | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Projects such as this are accepted by the public only after an EIS. Anything less isn't acceptable. |
| 6994 | Frances | Green | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have lived just a few blocks away from the freeway my entire life. I have seen firsthand the damage it does by ripping communities apart and I have felt firsthand the damage that pollution does to my lungs. as young as ten I suffered from late night coughing attacks triggered by the polluted air. if ODOT truly believed that the freeway expansion would not harm the environment there would be no opposition to conducting an EIS and proving it. the fact that they are so reluctant to do so is evidence that the expansion will cause harm to our freeway and our community. are this state's claims of forward thinking and progressiveness all hypocritical? if odot and other government officials truly cared about the community they would stop the expansion and invest in public transportation instead. ________________________________Time: December 18, 2022 at 8:44 pmIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/Sent by an unverified visitor to your site. |
| 6995 | Corinne | Woodland | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions (The Portland Mercury wrote about this in 2018, and ODOT s study this summer supports this finding). ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. ________________________________Time: December 18, 2022 at 8:00 pmIP Address: [Redacted]Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx. com/lidsnotlanes/Sent by an unverified visitor to your site. |
| 6996 | M. | Scott Jones | Hello,Please record, and not hide, my objection to any new lanes being added to the I-5 corridor near my home in North Portland. I object for these reasons:- Adding more lanes to roads only encourages more traffic, causing congestion to only worsen. - The increase in traffic as well as the use in carbon-intensive concrete and other construction materials and processes that adding more lanes will cause will result in an increase in noise, carbon dioxide emissions, and other air pollution to my city and neighborhood, as well as the planet in general. - Forging head with this project is in direct conflict with the city of Portland and state of Oregon s claimed commitment to reducing our carbon footprint in order to address our planet's climate emergency. - The widening will cause even more damage than the I-5 freeway has already caused to the city and surrounding neighborhoods since it was built. - The widening will diminish and damage the safe pedestrian and cycling infrastructure that the city has put in place, and it will make it even harder to improve alternative transportation modes. While ODOT is a public agency, it has been led by individuals who believe that its mission is to consistently build more roads and thus INCREASE automobile and truck transportation, when it should be focusing on IMPROVING transportation in the state. Improving transportation means decreased distances between journeys to work and play, decreased need for automotive transport, and increased accessibility to work and play via other means of transport, in particular walking, cycling and bus and train transit. ODOT s leadership has been so committed to fulfilling the mission of INCREASING automotive transit and VMIs that it has errantly set for the agency that it has consistently attempted to subvert the vociferously expressed will of the majority of its employers, the residents of Oregon, to stop the increased roads and auto traffic. The agency needs to be purged and replaced with individuals who are committed to healing the planet and improving the livability of Oregon and its cities, towns and neighborhoods instead of increasing automotive transit and VMIs. Thank you. Scott--M. Scott Jones |
| 6997 | Mark | Hutchins Canright | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hi there! As a farmer who supports the protection of our ecosystems, I ask you to please not expand the highway greater than its current span. I think that we all should work together to wisely protect our ecosystems from further development, and instead let's support public transit options increasing in our area. Thanks very much, mark |
| 6998 | Amy | Hansen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello, I am a mother and I think it's important to protect our beautiful region from further development. Let's instead advance public transportation and not expand the highway any further. Thank you very much for considering my comments, and take good care. |
| 6999 | Rebecca | New Canright | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Greetings! As a young person who cares about safeguarding our beautiful regions ecosystems, I respectfully ask you to use your influence to not allow the freeway to be expanded. Let's instead protect these beautiful lands of ours and reduce development impacts upon surrounding wildlife. It is important to limit human encroachment upon wildlife areas. Thank you for your time and consideration, and happy holidays! |
| 7000 | Thomas | Joseph Doherty | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident of NE Portland whose daughter has attended Harriet Tubman school I demand that ODOT conduct an EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I am firmly against simply adding more lanes to the freeway, as these WILL NOT improve traffic congestion and WILL negatively affect air quality. There is clearly a conflict of interest issue here since ODOT's mandate is building roads. That will always be their "solution. " Given the reality of the climate crisis, the State of Oregon should look at this project from multiple human health and environmental impact perspectives and chose the option that is best for LOCAL PEOPLE not for simply green house gas producing traffic. |
| 7001 | Chris | Murray | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: If you expand freeways, people will just drive more. We need to be driving less. |
| 7002 | Sijia | Yan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have concerns about how the proposed plan will affect neighboring communities and the kids in schools nearby. This affects will be both environmental and quality of life. An environmental impact statement definitely needs to be conducted to assess and risk and see what the best solution is. |
| 7003 | Matt | Gumbel | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Despite the fact that I drive to and from work on a regular basis, I'm still capable of seeing the obvious fact that cars ruin our environment, make the city unlivable, disconnect people from each other, and generally make our lives difficult. I'm absolutely opposed to any further expansion of car infrastructure, and demand ODOT to place greater focus on sustainable solutions such as public transit, busses, trains, and bikes. We don't want Portland to turn into Los Angeles! |
| 7004 | Cristina | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Lidding freeways across the nation would bring more public space, vegetation for enjoyment and wildlife, dampening of detrimental sound, and better overall quality of life for communities adjacent to freeways. Equity, elevated quality of life for everyone, and increased economic opportunity for business | |
| 7005 | Brice | Suprenant | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand ODOT conduct an environmental impact statement because we don't need more fossil fuel burning vehicles polluting the city and giving more residents incentive to drive. The Albina neighborhood has suffered enough and we are at a pivotal moment in our world where we can be leaders in renewable energy infrastructure or further continue down the path toward environmental collapse. This is important to me for the future of everyone. |
| 7006 | Nicole | Funke | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT conduct an EIS for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because there is no way that widening this freeway (into a middle school, no less) would not have a dire impact on air, water and sound pollution for the surrounding neighborhoods. Creating more lanes doesn t solve traffic, it induces it, and induced traffic means heightened pollution. The only reasonable way forward short of removing the freeway, is to maintain the current size of the freeway and build caps to reconnect the neighborhoods that were destroyed by its creation. |
| 7007 | Sue | Hi, My name is Sue. I live in north-east Portland, and I am very much in favor of anything that makes the interchange of I-5 around 84 better. I believe that more roads would be helpful. I think it's common sense. And I hope that you could just do it already, stop talking about it and just do it already. So, good luck. I think, most of us who drive are very happy that it might be better. Thank you. | |
| 7008 | Henry | Loeb | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A myriad of false claims are being peddled by ODOT and other parties right now many of which relate to the environmental impact of the freeway expansion. At the bare minimum an EIS study must be conducted to prove any of their claims and more likely expose a lot more issues. Blindly plodding along the proposed course doesn't do anyone any good and will likely cause serious harm in the short to long term. |
| 7009 | Cary | Sneider | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Funds spent on freeways result in more cars on the road, and more degradation of the environment. Divert the funds to public transportation, to provide services to all sectors of society (not just wealthy car owners) and reduce environmental impacts. |
| 7010 | Lilly | Hankins | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding the freeway will inevitably lead to more car traffic, more pollution, and more planet- heating emissions at a time where every season we are seeing the impact of climate change more and more. I am a parent to a 6 year old and a mental health therapist working with teens. I'm seeing young people every day who feel hopeless as they see climate change accelerate as the adults in charge continue to invest in business-as- usual infrastructure (like bigger freeways) that are making the problem worse. We need to slow this project down, understand the impact it will have on neighboring communities and our larger climate, and use our taxpayer money in an environmentally- smarter way. PLEASE require an environmental impact statement. |
| 7011 | Reed | Buterbaugh | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Climate change is real, Highway expansion gives more space to vehicles that use space & energy inefficiently. In a urban environment, both are at a premium, so the state shouldn t further subsidize a project that inefficiently uses space for pollution-intensive transportation. Invest in public transportation and affordable housing, not highways. Tolls and increased funding public transportation would make our air cleaner, our neighborhoods better connected, and our people healthier. |
| 7012 | Niomi | Markel | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Highways are unnatural!!!!! The science is so clear that cars are unsustainable even if they re 100% electric, we need to move towards mass transit now more than ever. But ODOT refuses to examine this issue because if they did any investigating, like conducting an EIS, they d realize this project is ultimately detrimental to the environment and public health, and thus they d have to divest from cars and reinvest in mass transportation. Conduct the EIS!!!!! |
| 7013 | Lila | Jones | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: If you really believe you re doing the right thing, an EIS should only affirm that choice. Please pull it together, stop dodging responsibility, and listen to the climate leaders of Portland the youth who dedicate so much to letting you know how to do better. |
| 7014 | Veronica | Poklemba | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I would like to see a full study of the environmental impact of the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Encouraging more cars/trucks on roads makes no sense at a time when we know the dangers of increased air pollution on our health; and in this case especially the health of our children. If the city is at all serious about reaching identified goals related to improved air quality, the effort should be towards doing away with projects like this; and developing ways to move people around the city that lessen air pollution. |
| 7015 | J | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: They should conduct this study to see how this money could be used to expand public transit and bike systems rather than another freeway that will only take up more land and increase traffic and toxic emissions. Improving public transit and bike travel will help the state and the planet. Think smarter ODOT. | |
| 7016 | Ethan | Jones | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must reject its big oil puppetmaster and focus on transitioning Oregonians away from the terror of the automobile. If ODOT continues its crusade to destroy Portland and the planet, we will continue to block the espansion physically. |
| 7017 | Alison | Kastner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Evidence continues to accrue that more highways result in more impacts to vulnerable populations, more environmental degradation, and more traffic. ODOT needs to conduct an Environmental Impact Study for the freeway expansion so the public can have an understanding of the true and ongoing costs of this approach to transportation infrastructure. |
| 7018 | Peter | Seaman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Good day! ODOT needs to conduct a full EIS for the Rose Quarter freeway expansion so that the public will know the FULL effect of the $1 billion+ investment they are making. The world is changing quickly - remote work, self-driving cars, tolling, and things no one has even thought of will all impact travel patterns in coming years. We need to know the cumulative effect of all these outside factors before spending so much public money on a so-called improvement. Thank you. - Peter |
| 7019 | Walt | Mintkeski | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I urge ODOT to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts that the Rose Quarter freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our residents' lungs, and our climate. I understand that ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling and congestion pricing are not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions. Therefore, the EIS must include a thorough investigation of tolling and congestion pricing. |
| 7020 | Jan | Wulling | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: many reasons! Its too impractical, for one. |
| 7021 | Blake | Goud | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I would like to express my strong opposition to the Supplemental Environmental Assessment and the plans by ODOT to not produce a full Environmental Impact Statement that considers the option of building only the caps over the freeway without widening the width of the freeway (regardless of whether that is unstriped width or additional lanes of freeway regardless of whether they are called "auxillary"). Throughout the process, ODOT has failed to be straight with the public about the project and it's impact, the cost of the project has grown exponentially, and the climate crisis has worsened while deaths and injuries on ODOT orphan highways spiral towards record levels. The response from ODOT has been to claim poverty for the other needs and to try to pass blame onto those pressing for caps to restore the destruction that ODOT wrought on North Portland in the 1960s. The caps are a good investment but they don't need to have a wider highway in order to be built. The new planned route includes new switchback offramps that will further impair bike and bus travel through the Rose Quarter. This is unacceptable. Also unacceptable is the complete ignoring of the implications of induced demand. The climate crisis means no more business as usual. Anytime there is congestion, whether of internal combustion or electric vehicles, the first response should be to adequately price the use of public resources (which urban vehicle lane-miles definitely are). We should save public money for investments that save lives like those required for jurisdictional transfers of deadly ODOT orphan highways. We should mitigate emissions by appropriately pricing use of the highways at busy times. And we don't need any wider highways. Thank you. |
| 7022 | Marin | Palmer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Considering the huge impact to Portlanders and broader Oregon and Washington residents, an EIS is necessary to fully study alternatives to expanding freeway lanes. I support full consideration of other possibilities to reduce congestion through this corridor |
| 7023 | Heather | Mathewson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Suicide rates and depression are skyrocketing at an alarming rate, including in our youth. One of the biggest reasons for this is no hope in a future. One of those key parts is climate change. Give children a reason to not kill themselves out of hopelessness. Actually do what you can to prevent climate change. |
| 7024 | Seth | Pellegrino | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It's almost 2023, ODOT: stop trying to make urban freeways happen. They haven't worked, they won't work, and it's a really bad look for you to keep trying to make them work, despite all the evidence. I know you're aware of the evidence, because you keep trying to cover it up: you're unwilling to do an EIS because you know it'll say there are better alternatives, and you've never earnestly considered the alternatives to expansion so you'd have to more or less start over. You say now we're "too far along," but it's got to stop somewhere: there will come a day when we will heal the last scar wrought upon our landscape by the fever dreams of Robert Moses. That day has already arrived in many cities and towns around the world, some that started at least as deep in the hole as we are. But the first and most important step in getting out of a hole is to simply stop digging. |
| 7025 | Alicia | Cohen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion will have a negative climate impact. Transportation is already one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions in Oregon. By widening the freeway, people will be incentivized to drive more frequently and more freight traffic will be induced to travel through the central city. Increases in vehicle miles traveled directly contribute to more harmful greenhouse gas emissions. We must stop creating infrastructure that will contribute to climate change. |
| 7026 | Dick | Dolgonas | I do not think this project can go through without a full EIS. Trying to mitigate all the impacts and use a FONSI on a project of this magnitude with statewide implications is unwise and will delay eventually finding an appropriate solution. The movement to try and get this project going without an full EIS only creates more tension over the many mitigation measures and does not allow for full impacts to be brought forth and weighed. It is almost certainly to be appealed, which will only further exacerbate the issues. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. |
| 7027 | Marsha | Hanchrow | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I work within a stone's throw of this unkillable expansion, and am already breathing seriously polluted air for about 250 days every year. More lanes, even if they're called "auxiliary" means more traffic which means more pollution. I bike to my job in Lloyd, which means I'm breathing this sludge deeply. This project needs a full EIS, and congestion pricing needs to be implemented and tested for a year before a single shovelful of dirt is moved. |
| 7028 | Robin | Lanehurst | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: 90% of respondees in 2019 already answered this question - this is not something that Portlanders want. What's the harm in conducting the EIS? Why would we want to move forward with such a huge expansion project without fully understanding the impact this is going to have on our environment?ODOT does not have a record of being transparent, so I suppose it doesn't surprise me that they don't want to do a full EIS. They continue to keep hidden their real plans, and have a record of refusing to share information without repeated advocacy. I 100% do not trust that ODOT has Portland's best interests in mind with these plans, until we see the full impact of the EIS. |
| 7029 | Laney | Ellisor | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In August, I walked through the Homowo & Twins Festival at King School Park. Standing out amidst the African vendors was a tent emblazoned with the "I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project" logo. In front was a sign bearing the words "bringing change to the quarter. " The white woman tabling passed out literature and explained to passersby that the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion would actually serve as reparations to Black Portlanders for the interstate's destruction of the Albina area. The shiny pamphlets and the fancy website they lead you to obfuscate the fact that the "improvement project" is just a cover for the Oregon Department of Transportation. The site has a "Voices of Albina" page that suggests the project will benefit and has the support of the "Black Community," apparently a monolith that excludes Albina Vision Trust and even the Portland Trailblazers. As a resident of Eliot in Albina, I want an Environmental Impact Statement because I'm tired of ODOT's lies, hiding, and manipulation of its stakeholders. The proposed freeway expansion would further harm the historically Black neighborhoods of Albina ODOT performatively claims to care so much about. The change ODOT asserts it will bring to the quarter amounts to more destruction and pollution, and an EIS would demonstrate that. |
| 7030 | DC | Donohue | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland! Stop it with the more bigger roads that will leave more citizens coughing and wheezing down below! There are no expendable neighborhoods or individuals. You must discover and transparently share the findings of the impact of the Rose Quarter expansion on neighborhoods affected. |
| 7031 | Charlotte | Vancleve | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct an environmental impact statement for the proposed Rose Quarter expansion. We must know the full extent of how this freeway will contribute to poor air quality and pollution in this part of the city. It is incredibly important that we be mindful and intentional in how we as a city expand. We need to be expanding public transit, bike infrastructure and other forms of transportation that do not worsen our impacts on climate change. I ve always been proud to be from Portland, but lately our priorities feel off. As someone who suffers from climate change grief and anxiety, I want to live in a city that focuses time and resources towards reducing our climate footprint and protecting our kids - not a city that does the opposite by expanding freeways (which don t even fix traffic congestion) in the playground of schools. |
| 7032 | Adrienne | Leverette | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It s insane that an investment of this magnitude would be made without a complete Environmental Impact Statement. We are well past the window of $&!? around and find out. We need to be careful and responsible when it comes to emissions intensive projects so that our children might live on a habitable planet. We know more now than we did before. Let s learn from our mistakes. There are so many ways to deal with traffic congestion and freeway expansion isn t even one of them. We need serious solutions to serious problems. |
| 7033 | Philip | Cooper | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please submit to a full EIS on the Rose Quarter freeway expansion. We do not need more noise, toxic pollution and traffic in our North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods. |
| 7034 | Joel | Statz | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Today I am asking ODOT to conduct a FULL Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed RQ Freeway Expansion. As you know, a recent lawsuit ruled that ODOT didn t study alternatives to expansion. Given the climate crisis we face, there is no ethical reason to expand a freeway at this time. We must be reducing our reliance on fossil infrastructure, not building it out. There are other options to address traffic flow in that area (e. g. congestion pricing) that would not increase air pollution/contribute to our ongoing climate chaos. Thank you. |
| 7035 | Karen | Jacobson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is both fiscally irresponsible and ecologically immoral to plan a 12-lane highway with a price tag of $1. 45 billion through the heart of our city as the climate crisis worsens every year! The children at Harriet Tubman Middle School deserve to have clean air and a place to play outdoors that is safe and quiet. Moreover we know that widening the highway will only create room for more cars and more traffic. |
| 7036 | William | Crawford | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Induced demand. Greenhouse gas emissions. Tolls on the road. Study these things before expanding the system of single use combustion engines and inefficient freight transport. We know this project will result in a boondoggle out of touch with what we really need. Why don t you just do the math first?We owe it to the future. We owe it to our community. |
| 7037 | Rob | Parker | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that our public officials and entities require that ODOT conduct a complete and thorough Environmental Impact Statement. Our community s air quality and health are imperative to keeping Portland livable. Additionally, the environmental impact of increased carbon emissions will move us further away from reach our climate change goals and initiatives. Freeway expansion only increases carbon and air pollution, without improving throughput or alleviating congestion. Data and research indicates that congestion pricing would be a much more effect method. For these reasons I demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement. |
| 7038 | Susan | Haywood | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeways promote air pollution, threaten animals and habitat. We MUST look at the environmental impact of ODOT's proposed freeway expansion by conducting a full EIS. Expanded freeways are detrimental to the well-being of us all as they entrench us further in a car culture. Instead of freeways, we need to develop public transport to get those cars off the road. I would also propose an alternate route for through traffic. Large trucks provide a lot of the particulate pollution and congestion. Move the traffic to an area where there are fewer residences and schools. |
| 7039 | Nancy | Crumpacker | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: More cars means more air pollution, which is dangerous to Portland residents. |
| 7040 | Kelly | Rodgers | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Investing in roadway expansion is not the strategy we need for a healthy, sustainable, and effective transportation system. We need a full environmental (and health) impact statement to disclose the full costs of this project. Let's also be skeptical of claims that greenhouse gas emissions are reduced with greater vehicular throughput -- greenhouse gas emissions are reduced with less vehicular travel, which is accomplished through investments in transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure, smarter freight management strategies, and sensible land use practices. A billion dollars would go a long way in making real GHG reduction transportation investments. |
| 7041 | Craig | Schommer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There will always be bottlenecks around Portland unless every mile of highway is expanded. The Marquam Bridge, 405 to 26, 1-5 over the Columbia will always be an issue. This is only kicking the can, or in this case traffic, down the road to a another location. Expanding the highway only moves the bottleneck to a new area. Please seriously consider using our limited tax money to fund long term solutions. Thank you for your consideration,Craig |
| 7042 | Taylor | Griggs | Hello,My name is Taylor and I'm a reporter with BikePortland. Is there a recording to Wednesday's public hearing? I see it's private on YouTube and would like to watch. Thanks, Taylor--Taylor Griggs (she/her) |
| 7043 | Lenny | Dee | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need to reduce emissions |
| 7044 | Paula | Cano | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is unthinkable that ODOT is considering this expansion at a time of climate emergencies. We are all doing our piece to accomplish the decarbonization goals that will spare us from the worst effects of global warming. ODOT needs to lead us into the future by improving public transportation and expanding bike lanes, NOT FREEWAYS. |
| 7045 | Stephen | Bachhuber | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT has not been honest about plans and consequences. They underestimate the phenomenon of induced demand. We saw this on 205, as it approached capacity decades before predicted. The effects of freeway expansion are imposed mainly on a neighborhood historically occupied by people of color. The project reeks of environmental racism. Expansion is simply too expensive. |
| 7046 | Elizabeth | Zenger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Every week, I commute by bike past the Harriet Tubman School on NE Flint St. and I think about the young children inside the school whose environment is already impacted by the freeway corridor and will be further impacted by expansion. To claim that the freeway expansion does not have a negative impact is incredulous and flies in the face of common sense. A full and impartial Environmental Impact Statement is the only way to evaluate and make an appropriate and humane decision that respects the neighborhood, the community and the people. |
| 7047 | Liz | Tyler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: NO! The freeway needs to be expanded. The added air pollutants from cars idling in this area not to mention safety issues make expansion necessary. This also comes from the government Ecology employee husband. Demanding these studies just unnecessarily increases costs to the project ! |
| 7048 | Richard | Bayer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Wider Freeways means more traffic and that means more air pollution. It is hard enough to breathe in downtown Portland. Please do not make it worse. |
| 7049 | Kim | Davis | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Our air quality is deplorable and the expansion will only make it worse! |
| 7050 | Shin | Oblander | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Decades of highway and road expansions around the US have demonstrated that, in the long term, induced demand negates any reduction in congestion created by adding more lanes of capacity. Additionally, the interstate system has wrought environmental damage, displaced communities, and produced extensive negative health and quality-of-life externalities for underprivileged residents in the Portland area through noise and air pollution. Oregon has yet to make amends to these communities. Freeway expansion will not effectively address congestion issues facing the Portland area and will only worsen the environmental damage and other negative externalities perpetuated by the interstate system. In the era of climate change, and given this fraught history, it is imperative that ODOT invest in (1) convenient and affordable public transit alternatives to driving so as to take cars off the road and meaningfully reduce traffic rather than adding more lanes that will be filled with more traffic in a decade; and (2) human-centric transportation design such as freeway lids and traffic calming so as to make neighborhoods negatively affected by highway traffic safer and more livable. A full environmental impact study is necessary to understand the health and environmental impacts of the proposed expansion on the residents of Albina and beyond, and further exploration is necessary into alternatives that can more effectively address capacity issues without producing as many negative externalities. |
| 7051 | Lauriel | Amoroso | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must complete an Environmental Impact Statement on the Proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project in order to ensure the safety of our community. We need to be moving away from polluting freeway expansion and find alternatives to this proposed project that meet climate goals and livable communities including capping the current freeway. |
| 7052 | Susan | Bladholm | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT Leaders,We know that change is hard- but your team is empowered to lead Oregon's transportation planning infrastructure. Please lead-- innovate, try new things and look to best practices around the world. Start committing more resources to active transit planning and low-carbon emission solutions. Building more roadways is not a path to reducing CO2 emissions. You have so many good people on your team, but you need the courage and conviction to say that ODOT is working to preserve our air quality in a meaningful way. Please innovate, adapt, and look at new, proven transportation solutions. |
| 7053 | Rob | McRae | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm writing to demand ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. We do not need $1. 4 billion tax dollars to contribute to more freeway lanes if they will only contribute to our burning planet. |
| 7054 | Sarah | Lind | I bike to and from work using the Vancouver/Williams intersections. I also drive in these areas when I am going out of town/returning home from out of town. I am concerned that increasing vehicle traffic with an offramp at Williams will make what is already a tricky intersection (impatient drivers attempting to access I84, often blocking the main intersection at peak rush hour times), into one that is even more dangerous for people walking and biking. This is even acknowledged in the information ODOT provided on this website. Additionally, by creating more space for vehicle travel (often single occupancy vehicles), this goes against reducing emissions for the climate crisis we are now facing. Induced demand will result in more vehicle travel in the additional lanes provided. While I appreciate ODOT's efforts to better the project, such as the freeway cover to support buildings/public spaces, it still prioritizes car travel and therefore increased air pollution in the neighborhoods it passes through. I cannot support the expansion of the freeway when we are in a climate crisis, and those funds could be used in projects that better serve the community. Thank you for your time and consideration. |
| 7055 | Conrad | Ronk | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are other viable transportation solutions that odot is obligated to study! We can do better than car based modes! |
| 7056 | Rory | Cowal | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have serious concerns about ODOT's proposed freeway expansion. This proposal is being considered at a critical moment for people and the planet. In order to avert climate catastrophe, urgent action is required at all levels: global, regional, national and local. Freeway expansion flies in the face of Oregon's climate goals: increasing carbon emissions is not doing our part to protect the health and wellbeing of current and future generations of Oregonians. A full Environmental Impact Statement should be conducted to fully understand the consequences of this proposed project. |
| 7057 | Kai | McMurtry | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT must conduct a full EIS that truly studies whether additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. Build lids, not lanes! |
| 7058 | Greg | Adams | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm concerned about adding air pollution, noise, and carbon emissions that will come with this project. I fully support studies on alternatives to expansion. ODOT has shown itself to be untrustworthy in terms of data modeling, and ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement! |
| 7059 | Kira | Lynch | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Without an environmental impact study, how will you know if this is a safe option for people's health? We know cars cause pollution which in turn makes air dirty and worse for people to breath. But how much worse? Will we be seeing an increase in asthma cases? Lung cancer? And whose fault would that be? I want to see some accountability for this freeway expansion. And honestly, I'd prefer if it didn't happen in the first place. But at the very least, you must conduct and environmental impact study. Put people first. |
| 7060 | Pat | Kaczmarek | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland citizens have demanded in countless letters and testimony since 2017, that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts of a proposed Rose Quarter freeway expansion. There is potential for rerouting and congestion on the neighborhood streets, damage to children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. We are in a Climate Crisis. We should be focusing our efforts on moving away from fossil fuels and unnecessary transportation costs while encouraging energy conservation. Now is the time for change. |
| 7061 | Zak | Accuardi | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Oregon claims to be a climate leader, and to care about repairing the harms our State has perpetuated in communities of color and historically Black communities in particular. No one making either of those claims can in the same breath invest in a highway widening through a historically Black neighborhood, especially when investments in zero-emissions transportation options, land use reforms, freeway caps, and equitable pricing could better achieve the project's stated goals -- as a full EIS could more deeply explore. More than ever, now is not the time to rubber stamp projects that are destructive to the state's climate, public health, equity, and traffic safety goals alike. Conducting a full EIS with a purpose and need statement co-created with most-impacted communities, and ensuring that alternatives considered include not only a "no-build" scenario but also a "comparable investment with no capacity expansion" scenario, would represent the absolute bare minimum of due diligence required to consider whether and how to proceed with this project. |
| 7062 | Joanne | Johnson | Hello, As a resident of Northeast Portland and a disabled woman who uses a mobility scooter to travel, I want to affirm your intention to expand pedestrian access and safety as part of this project. I understand this project will have travel impacts both during construction and in completion. Accessible pedestrian facilities are part of what ensures that I can travel around my neighborhood. This means that I can continue to live, work, and enjoy Portland. I urge you to meet or exceed the proposed Public Right of Way Accessibility Guidelines both during construction and in the final project. Following these guidelines will also make it easier for many other people to travel throughout the I-5 Rose Quarter area, including families, people using strollers, and people with luggage or carts. As a white woman who cares deeply about being part of an anti-racist community, I also encourage you to collaborate with Black Portlanders to ensure that this project benefits Portland's Black communities in meaningful ways. Highway projects have a long history of perpetuating racism and disrupting Black community centers. By centering Black Portlanders in this project, this history can be acknowledged and steps can be taken to rebuild trust with communities that are essential to a thriving Oregon. Sincerely, Joanne Johnson |
| 7063 | Nickole | Cheron | A colleague of mine sent your project my way. I wanted to highlight some accessibility issues/concerns. First and foremost your website it's not very user-friendly. And while it offered the opportunity to make comments and direct people to an online web form There is in fact no link to the form on the page. There also doesn't appear to be a meaningful access statement for folks who might need accommodations to access the information either because they are disabled or they are not primarily English speakers. As for the project itself it is very important during construction phase that there is very clear information easily accessible to people who are blind. We often get complaints at the city when construction is being done from folks who experience blindness that they cannot navigate past construction because either they were not aware that there was construction to begin with and if there is an alternative route it is not clearly marked in a way that the white team can pick up. Hope this is helpful,Nickole |
| 7064 | Nick | Sauvie | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Stop the Rose Quarter freeway expansion. Oregon should not invest billions of dollars on projects that will increase vehicle miles traveled and make our climate crisis worse. |
| 7065 | Susan | Palmiter | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is a MAJOR drain on resources and will most certainly become a major impact on the environment for those who live near I-5. A full and thorough EIS is needed to understand the issues that need to be addressed in this expansion. Caps should be put over the freeways in the downtown corridor to contain noise and pollution. We need to trust our public servants and ODOT appears to be losing the public trust. Please address these concerns. |
| 7066 | Lucas | Jans | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Our community lives here. Any significant project that impacts their health and wellbeing should be carefully considered from all perspectives. The decisions we make now can impact us for generations. The world is changing fast. The climate is warming. We're moving away from harmful forms of transportation to safer methods of moving goods and people. To ignore the environmental impact of a large construction project is to ignore this trend and the well-being of our community. Your job is to serve us, not just build. |
| 7067 | Dean | Gisvold | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in NE Portland, about a mile from the I-5 freeway. I am tired public agencies dumping more toxic pollution into N and NE Portland, forcing underserved communities to bear the brunt of the problems caused by too many cars and too many freeways. We already know what the effects are, and none are good. Kids in my neighborhood have to attend the middle school close by the freeway, and guess what-the school already has high levels of pollution. Stop this nonsense and spend the money on transit. I helped defeat the Rose City Freeway in the 1970s, and I will work to defeat this expansion project too. |
| 7068 | Baylee | Jue | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in an area that had trucks traveling (daily) less than a quarter of a mile from homes, businesses, schools. I do not think an environmental impact report was ever done to look at the impact this has on our area. One needs to be done before any further work is done to increase the freeway. |
| 7069 | Sean | Sweat | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The longstanding refusal of traffic engineers & DOTs to honestly consider the well known reality of induced demand has for a long time bordered on malfeasance. The scientific and planning communities know, with certainty, that due to induced demand and opportunity costs, widening freeways worsens our climate crisis. There is no honest interpretation to the contrary and we need Oregon's DOT to lead the nation on this issue. I want to be proud that Oregon, as an environmental stalwart, leads the charge on changing national paradigms. I am excited about ODOT's pursuit of tolling our freeways. But instead of framing the tool as a source of revenue, instead shape your models around it being a tool for TDM. In this way, you can use tolling to right-size freeway demand to our current infrastructure. This moment, especially with tolling on the table, is a big opportunity for ODOT to show true climate leadership. I want ODOT to be motivated by being an environmental trailblazer, so that I may rally behind you. No more freeways. Instead, let this be the moment that Oregon turned the corner into a new era of climate stewardship that leads the nation forward. |
| 7070 | Catherine | Thompson | very interested as a city bus operator. more public housing & services needed around MODA center to reduce tent sites and needles/trash. |
| 7071 | Adam | Wolfe | 4,000 Metric Tons of Carbon per year is 4,000 too many. Future generations will judge projects like this harshly. Everyone who participated in adding more lanes and more carbon to the air will be judged for their role in the destruction of the planet. We know we can't afford to keep filling our air with carbon. There is no more plausible deniability. Do the right thing. Don't spend another dollar of tax payer money to further the destruction of the planet. The youth are watching. We want a planet with a future. Not one more lane. |
| 7072 | Richard | Gagne | This central & important section of I-5 has been a serious tie up for as long as I have lived here. The improvements are a welcome to our city freeway's blockages that cost billions of lost revenue in shipping & commuting. working Oregonians have been waiting a long time for improvements. Thank you for your time . Rich Gagne' |
| 7073 | Evan | Paster | Please stop with this project. I lived on the east coast for 25 years and tolling absolutely contributed to traffic jams, even after EZ-Pass was implemented. I live in powellhurst-Gilbert, adjacent to the 205 entrance. Hundreds of people will take the streets instead of paying the tolls, causing congestion throughout the area. According to a recent report, the funding and even the design plans to mitigate neighborhood, congestion or not in place. Feels to me like the most likely outcome of tolling will be more congestion everywhere without any noticeable improvements to the community. |
| 7074 | Chris | Smith | Megan,I hope you are well. One of our analysts noted what appears to be a data discrepancy (or at least a very odd coincidence) in Tables 5 and 6 in the Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report. The AM results in both tables appear to be identical, i. e. , the values for 7-8am and 8-9am are the same. We're guessing that this was a data transcription error in assembling the tables. Could you confirm if this is the case, and if so issue an errata with the correct data? Thanks. Chris |
| 7075 | Matt | Tuckerbaum | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are in the midst of a climate crisis, and transportation contributes 42% of Oregon's carbon emissions. Adding new infrastructure that drives additional carbon emissions for decades to come is not a decision that should be taken lightly. ODOT must conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, and they must be honest with Oregonians about the impact they are going to have on the world, the state, the city, and the neighborhood with their proposed expansion. |
| 7076 | James | Maertin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In Portland, like everywhere else in the U. S. , enormous damage has been done by pursuing a primary transportation system based on private automobiles, over many decades. Congestion and pollution are but two from a long list of harms. A tremendous amount of our tax dollars are to be spent on this boondoggle, funds which would be better directed toward making it possible to get around town without a car, and not having it take 3-4 times as long. Further, this project will only be a band aid on congestion, and won't do anything to reduce pollution, which is aimed directly at that poor school. It's time to reverse the priority of cars first, and make it pedestrians first. |
| 7077 | Elizabeth | Israel-Davis | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: First of all, I can't believe I'm having to do this again. In February 2019 I, and 2000 other citizens, submitted public comments regarding this proposed freeway expansion with over 90% of us in opposition. This is not, nor will it ever be a responsible use of public funds. In the years since that round of public comment, ODOT has repeatedly withheld crucial information or demonstrably misled the public about the proposal. We must have a new environmental impact statement and consider ideas which would decrease driving, not encourage it. It's time for Portland to become leaders again in environmental stewardship and prioritizing people over cars. I remember when our city was a leader in all of this but it hasn't been for over a decade and this proposed freeway widening is clear evidence of this. |
| 7078 | Steve | Brown | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: EIS provide critical information with respect to identifying and quantifying the true impact of the freeway expansion on the environment and surrounding community. ODOT has made multiple claims that the Freeway will reduce vehicle CO2 to justify expanding the I-5 corridor. However they have not provided any proof or documentation of the scientific basis for their claims of reduced vehicle emissions. The conduction of a through science based EIS and publication of it s assumptions and results is required in order to make critical decisions by the approving governmental agencies with respect to determining if the highway expansion will actually decrease CO2 emissions or will in fact result in an increase of CO2 emissions. The reduction in CO2 emissions from vehicular traffic is required to prevent further global warming. |
| 7079 | Susan | Haywood | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We cannot keep building infrastructure for using fossil fuels without taking into account the environmental impact. We are in climate and biodiversity crises. By encroaching on schools and communities with more freeways, we are not creating a public good. Nor are we protecting animals that may try to cross fast-moving freeways. Nor are we protecting the air for people living near the freeways. It is fiscally irresponsible to build freeways instead of more public transportation. |
| 7080 | Maria | Schur | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please consider the many future generations who will be adversely affected by the toxic infrastructure built to support motor vehicle users. I d like a future where human-powered transportation is valued and prioritized over polluting methods. |
| 7081 | Max | Scher | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansion is not a solution; it is a stop gap measure with well documented negative consequences (personal, medical, environmental) for a large swath of Portland s residents. It s a bandaid that causes harm to the wounded. Don t expand the freeway. Spend the money improving and expanding public transit systems so that they are safe, clean, and accessible. We need to serve all in our community not only those who travel by car, especially when we are aware of the environmental impacts of gas-powered vehicles on our already fragile planet. Stop worsening a solvable problem!!! Improve our infrastructure by actually improving it, not by making one part (a problematic part) bigger. |
| 7082 | Eric | Cross | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I grew up in Pennsylvania where an extremely similar situation was occurring with the Schuylkill expressway. Ridiculous amounts of $ have been spent to expand the expressway at what have been considered "pinch points" over the past 50 years. It never has really improved matters since it just shifts the pinch point to a different location but people still haven't learned their lesson and Philadelphia is attempting construction even today. Instead of expanding the Rose Quarter freeway, how about we look at alternatives that are environmentally friendly and don't displace people? Freeways are in the past. |
| 7083 | Russell | Senior | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need a full EIS. We don't need more lanes. We need to nationalize and electrify the railroads, operate them in the interests of shippers, and get long haul freight off highways. |
| 7084 | Janet | Weil | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A wider freeway means more traffic, which means more carbon emissions, which means more global heating. What part of CLIMATE EMERGENCY do you not understand? ODOT cannot continue the status quo of putting freeways first, and doing the same damn thing, over and over. |
| 7085 | Cale | Bickler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Lids not lanes. No lane expansion! |
| 7086 | Sarah | Deumling | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The state of Oregon is committed to reducing "Vehicle Miles Traveled" (VMT) to help reduce GHG emissions as quickly as possible in our belated quest to slow climate change. As a family forestland owner/manager who sees the negative impacts of climate change daily and who also knows that widening freeways will only INCREASE VMTs I urge ODOT, I beg ODOT, to do anything it can to prevent the widening of our roads, especially and including requiring an EIS. Please for the sake of our children's and grand children's futures. Sincerely,Sarah Deumling |
| 7087 | Casey | Walden | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland doesn't need any more or bigger highways. Highways divide the city and interrupt the walking and biking routes many rely on |
| 7088 | Eileen | Stark | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansions are an abominable and stupid way to spend public resources in this day of irreversible climate chaos. Freeway expansions have never solved traffic issues, and never will. They contribute atrociously to air pollution: Forty percent of Oregon s carbon emissions come from transportation, and it s impossible to reduce greenhouse gases without fundamentally reshaping our communities to make it easier to travel free of a car. Freeways are also horribly expensive and steal funds that could be used for mass transit, better bus and bicycle lanes, and electric charging stations. Instead, connect walkable communities with reliable and accessible transit to create a Green New Deal for transportation that won't poison the air. Also, focus on allowing employees to work from home (or at least work in a hybrid environment) to substantially decrease the traffic issues Portland faces. Tax those filthy high-emission vehicles--why should high polluters get a free ride?! We don't need more roads and asphalt. You must conduct an EIS before even considering any freeway expansion. |
| 7089 | Emily | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To demonstrate that the people living on this surface are more important than the vehicles of freight moving along it. | |
| 7090 | Judith | Arcana | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Though the Hybrid 3 caps proposal appears to offer actual improvement to the design, ODOT has done nothing to avoid the frighteningly dangerous impact of more freeway lanes - the poisonous/dangerous congestion they would create ("air pollution" on top of the now obvious/increased growth of global warming). The Hybrid 3 proposal should be funded and separated from ODOT s proposal to add 1. 8 miles lanes of polluting freeway. Moreover, ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to display the impact of their proposed freeway expansion. No one can trust ODOT; we've seen enough of their dissembling (and outright lies) to require extensive evidence for every claim they make. They've hidden basic information for 3-4 years now! I keep wondering if they even actually live here, in this city, in this region. If they do, how can they want their own lives to be so endangered? |
| 7091 | Peter | Gutmann | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It's important that ODOT complete an EIS so that proponents and opponents have valid information, and that decisions can be made that are in the long term interests of all the citizens and stakeholders. |
| 7092 | Alec | Malnati | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must study alternatives to expansionIf Oregon wants to continue to be a leader in environmental and climate policy, our agencies must deliver bold plans, and nor reinforce the status quo; i. e. prop up car culture and fossil fuels |
| 7093 | Michael | Westling | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The Rose Quarter expansion should absolutely not move forward without an EIS that examines the full impacts -- to our kids' health, the air quality, to carbon emissions, to traffic -- of adding lanes to I-5 through the Rose quarter. It is common sense that the EIS should include an analysis of what traffic and collisions would look like WITH tolling and WITHOUT adding lanes. It is highly likely that tolling alone with be enough to reduce traffic congestion, improve travel times and meet ODOT's goals in reducing collisions -- while also saving millions in construction budget and improving future air quality. Advancing this project without an EIS that includes this analysis is willful negligence at best and, sadly, more likely a cynical sentencing of future generations to live with a massive, unnecessary, and irreversible piece of fossil fuel infrastructure. You have a choice: please conduct an EIS that considers tolling and, once you receive the results, pursue a project scope that adds a lid to I-5 without adding lanes. The Albina community has suffered for decades from the impacts of ODOT tearing apart the neighborhood and displacing families to build I-5. Adding a buildable lid that improves biking, walking, and economic opportunity while improving safety on surface streets is an important step toward reconciling with ODOT's destructive past. Albina Vision Trust and the Historic Albina Advisory Board are asking for lids that create opportunity for this community -- please follow their leadership. ODOT has demonstrated that they refuse to provide complete information to inform the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project. It is your responsibility to gather all relevant data and information -- and then use that information to determine a path forward that meets the community's goals and doesn't waste millions on a construction project that does more harm than good. Thanks -- I hope you all finally choose to do the right thing. |
| 7094 | Aaron | Druck | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello. This proposed freeway would harm me and my family. Climate change is continuing on a fast clip, and I don't want my kids growing up in a world where there's really bad air pollution. This free would increase carbon emissions and I don't want my kids sucking in that air. Expanding the freeway, will only increase the amount of cars, and increase the amount of carbon emissions. |
| 7095 | Travis | Close | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a Washington State resident who does not own a car. I usually am walking, biking, or taking the bus as my mode of transportation. I do not support more subsidies for driving. Oregon DOT has failed to analyze several reasonable alternatives, including implementing congestion pricing without expanding the highway. Our country's highway departments must stop inducing climate change by incentivizing driving over other methods of transport that are far more environmentally friendly. At this point, ODOT should be well aware that expanding highways results in more VMT, which accelerates climate change and local pollution in our least advantaged neighborhoods. In addition to being environmentally catastrophic and inequitable, it is a poor use of funds that would be better spent improving public transit and active transportation between our PNW cities. Instead, we should be investing in design changes that are proven to lead to safer streets for everyone, such as: protected bike lanes and off-street paths; speed bumps, raised crosswalks, bulb-outs, chicanes, protected intersections; and strategic signal changes to prioritize pedestrians, people using mobility devices, and people on bikes. We demand that ODOT conduct an environmental impact statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, which will reveal that there are significant & unavoidable negative impacts that prevent the plan from moving forward. |
| 7096 | Case | Kauzer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The planet is burning. Every dollar spent on freeway expansion is climate arson. Expanding freeways has never once solved congestion. Do the full EIS. |
| 7097 | Alex | Johnson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,Expanding the freeway is such a terrible idea in a world where the automobile is causing the demise of our evergreen forests, and leading to global insecurity. To not conduct an environmental impact survey in this situation is so thick headed it causes me physical pain. Please think this through. Do what s best for the earth and it s inhabitants. |
| 7098 | Troy | Unverdruss | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please, we do not need more lanes of highway right now. We should introduce equitable congestion pricing first in order to determine continued demand and raise funds for alternative transportation means. Additionally, without a proper environmental assessment we cannot possibly proceed in a responsible manner. Please produce a proper assessment and introduce congestion pricing to reduce demand on the existing infrastructure while we continue to work towards our climate goals in the region. Troy |
| 7099 | Marjorie | Nafziger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I stand with the Albina neighborhood to not be yet again the victims of progress , in this situation, meaning no more freeway expansion at their expense. Please hold to a strict and thorough EIS!Lids not Lanes |
| 7100 | Paul | Sheprow | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We have the opportunity here to actually think outside the box and build for the future rather than clinging to the past. There is no future in wider freeways. There's no future in infrastructure that hasn't been fully vetted. |
| 7101 | Ben | Dillon | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is disheartening and frankly, outrageous that after years of demands from the Portland community, ODOT has still not conducted a full EIS for the proposed freeway expansion. This is shortsighted, undemocratic, and further erodes our community s tenuous confidence in ODOT. I would also like to express my support for the proposed Hybrid 3 caps over the existing freeway in the Albina neighborhood, which will restore local access to the street grid and maximize developable land. Thank you for your time and attention. |
| 7102 | Rev. Erin | Martin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Have we learned nothing from Portland s racist past? An EIS is the least we can do after devastating the historic Albina neighborhood. Expanding the freeway is moving backward environmentally and a dead-end for a flourishing future for us all. |
| 7103 | Christopher | Huggins | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expansion off fossil fuel infrastructure is allocating resources to the problems we face, not solutions. An environmental impact survey will as low for us to better allocate these resources to address impacts like environmental breakdown and community health out omes |
| 7104 | Rosanna | Henderson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please use your money more wisely, ODOT. Your neglected orphan highways are killing Portlanders--but you want to spend 1. 45 billion adding lanes to a freeway. Not only is this money a total waste (induced demand will soon clog however many lanes you add) but it will worsen air quality and traffic. Instead, put caps on the highway. Do the full EIS you've been trying to shirk. Thank you,Rosanna Henderson |
| 7105 | Rae | Blackbird | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To go forward with the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion as it stands without an Environmental Impact Statement would be an egregious oversight by the Oregon Department of Transportation and would irreparably change the landscape of Portland for the worse by causing real environmental damage. It is vital to explore other options for expansion, such as investing in freeway lids and other, less pollution-producing alternatives. I have been testifying against this project since I was a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson high school, and now I am a sophomore in college. It is heartbreaking to see ODOT make so little headway in ensuring the sustainability of this initiative. |
| 7106 | Matt | Malmlund | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Air pollution is a major issue in this city already. This project is not worth the expenses. |
| 7107 | Robin | Sack | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT conducts an EIS on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because it is not moral and not fair to our communities to continue this project without releasing the whole truth. Time and time again we learn that ODOT as a corporation is lying to us, and greenwashing their project to the ends of the earth just to get another piece of cement built in a so-called green city . We are tired, ODOT. You are putting our futures on the line days in a row, years in a row, DECADES in a row. It s time to listen to the real needs of the community and conduct an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Rosequarter Freeway Expansion. We need lids, not lanes. Start listening. Thank you. - Robin |
| 7108 | Aaron | Brown | No More Freeways is aware of approximately 210 comments submitted to ODOT intended for the public record for the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the Proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. These community members submitted their remarks in a manner consistent with the 2019 Public Comment period, by emailing the info@i5rosequarter. org<mailto:info@i5rosequarter. org> address and submitting written testimony. Their comments were submitted between November 28 and December 8, 2022. It came to our attention that on ODOT s website for the freeway expansion, the agency directs the public to submit comments to a new, previously unused email address. The website states that community members must Send an email with "Supplemental EA public comment period" in the subject line to: i5RoseQuarter@odot. oregon. gov<mailto:i5RoseQuarter@odot. oregon. gov> It is not clear to us why ODOT chose to use a new email address, one to our knowledge never previously used by the agency, when they knew that literally thousands of community members who submitted public comment on the prior EA might mistakenly use the same email address in their additional comments, and with the new added qualification that comments must add a specific subject line. The 210 individuals who submitted public testimony also emailed their comments to the Administrative email account for the Oregon Transportation Commission ( otcadmin@oregondot. or. us<mailto:otcadmin@oregondot. or. us> ) which should validate the date, sender and content of these comment submissions as legitimate public comment. Regardless of how this issue came about, we would like confirmation from ODOT that the agency will incorporate all of these and any other comments received by the info@i5rosequarter. org<mailto:info@i5rosequarter. org> address in the public comments for the Supplemental EA. ODOT needs to check that prior email address and incorporate all comments sent to it into the current Supplemental EA Record. To assist in that process, NMF has created a PDF with all of the comments that we are aware of so far. It is attached as a separate document. There are likely other comments that were sent to the prior email, that NMF is not currently aware of. ODOT needs to monitor that email for the rest of the comment period and incorporate any additional comments into the Supplemental EA record. Thank you. |
| 7109 | Linda | Craig | To ODOT:I am writing to request a full environmental impact statement on the I-5 expansion in Portland. Each day, I get more concerned about business-as-usual while the planet is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. I believe that the full EIS will show that a freeway expansion will add to greenhouse gas emissions in our city, and that building the expansion as currently planned would affect inner-city communities with increased air pollution. Why would you go ahead with something which so clearly violates Oregon s greenhouse gas goals and equity for all communities. Please add this to your comments on the project. I support the goals of Youth v. ODOT. They have to live with our planet s future. Please listen to them. Best regards,Linda CraigNW Portland |
| 7110 | Sarah | Risser | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm new to Portland, Oregon. I moved here for many reasons but in particular for the beautiful environment. Freeways are inherently polluting. Cars are inherently anti-social. We are in the midst of a climate crisis and expanding freeways is unspeakably inappropriate at this time. At the very least, the very very least, an Environmental Impact Statement should be conducted prior to any freeway expansion. |
| 7111 | David | Regan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Let's try congestion pricing before we spend hundreds of millions of dollars, (1. 4 billion dollars!) for a limited expansion of the freeway in the Rose Quarter area. |
| 7112 | Bob | Grover | I am former chair of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce and our organization actively promoted the 2017 funding package that included new taxes and fees. We did so with the understanding that the funding package was to relieve congestion through roadway expansion. As I look at the project outline, I see that the Rose quarter project has turned into an effort to cap the freeway in the name of "equity". I believe this is a complete bait and switch as we we're told that this package was for transportation projects to relieve congestion. I vehemently oppose the current plan and would rather do nothing than what is proposed. I am in our Chamber of Commerce is in support of multimodal transportation, in this package was promoted as a multimodal package including roadway expansion, with one of the largest pieces being the Rose quarter project. Please return the project to roadway expansion and if you want to cap the freeway, promote that and be honest with what you're trying to achieve if you're looking for support for funding. Bob Grover |
| 7113 | Brett | Morgan | Hello: Please find my attached comments on the supplemental EA for the rose quarter project and freeway expansion. Thank you! Brett--December 23, 2022RE: Rose Quarter Improvement Project Supplemental Environmental Assessment CommentPeriod. Dear Project Manager, Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Project,1000 Friends of Oregon is a land use and transportation advocacy organization deeplyconcerned about livability and climate change in large and small communities across the state,including the Portland Metro Region. As part of that, we closely follow large-scale infrastructureprojects, which depending on the project, and in particular how it is designed and for whom, can bebeneficial or harmful to livability. Therefore, we have concerns about the environmental, social,economic, and racial equity impacts of the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion (RQP). We appreciate the goals of the proposed Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion: toreduce congestion and improve safety. However, we remain concerned that this project, as currentlydesigned, will not achieve those goals. Decades of research show that projects that expand roadcapacity will induce more vehicle miles traveled, which decreases safety and increases congestion. Furthermore, we have concerns that in the pursuit of these goals, ODOT, the OTC, and otherstakeholders are not correctly accounting for the additional potential negative impacts of this projecton Portland and surrounding regional communities. This project raises substantial questions about the potential negative environmental and publichealth impacts across the region, as it will increase vehicle miles traveled, which is associated withincreased air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic runoff into local waterways. The localimpacts of this project are particularly concerning because this freeway was originally built throughthe heart of a thriving African-American community, destroying a robust business district, breakingphysical community connections, and exposing the neighborhood to an ongoing source of noise andair pollution that damages human health. The proposed project could expose neighbors to more of these hazards, adding extra weight tothe need for thoughtful and complete review. While this project has the potential to help improvecommunity outcomes through the creation of integrated and buildable freeway covers, the creation oflane miles below them arguably amplifies these negative impacts. We fully support the vision andwork Albina Vision Trust is bringing forward in this project, including buildable freeway lids, and we remain worried the freeway expansion elements might change the positive impacts Albina VisionTrust s concept plan creates, and certainly jeopardize potential funding for lids within the project. We call on ODOT and the OTC to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the I5Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion and to include congestion pricing alternatives to widening thefreeway. Congestion pricing and investing generated revenue in transit, biking, and walking is thebest way to increase free movement of people and goods. While ODOT states that analyzingcongestion pricing will be done separately, nothing prohibits the agency from including a congestionpricing analysis in an environmental impact statement of a road project and, in fact, the law mightrequire ODOT to do so. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires an analysis ofreasonable alternatives and the assessment of reasonably foreseeable circumstances. Given thatthe Oregon Legislature has required ODOT to pursue pricing for I-5 (and other freeways), and thatOTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin is on record stating that there s no viable pathway to fund this proposedexpansion without using revenue from tolls, leaving congestion pricing out of the analysis would fail toassess a very reasonably foreseeable circumstance. Furthermore, Governor Brown s executive order on climate change reinforced actuallyachieving already-adopted strict emissions targets for the state and directed all state agencies,commissions, and boards to take action to achieve the state climate goals. This includes i) prioritizingactivities that reduce emissions and ii) integrating climate change, climate impacts, and emissionsgoals into investments and policymaking. A full EIS is a critical component in understanding how theRQP fits within this executive order, as an EIS requires everything required in an EA, but, amongother things, also requires a hard look at the cumulative impacts of the proposal along with allexisting and reasonably foreseeable future development within the project area. This more holisticapproach taken by an EIS creates improved policy, provides for the good stewardship of taxpayerdollars, and will help correctly frame this project within the context of the climate crisis. In conclusion, 1000 Friends of Oregon joins many other Portlanders and Oregonians in raisingconcerns about this project. The best way to address these concerns, and possibly the only legalway, is the completion of a full environmental impact statement that includes congestion pricing as apart of both the base case and as an alternative to widening the freeway. We also remain concernedabout the financial impact of this project, and the need to right-size expansion to ensure that our statetransportation finances align with the many other regional projects moving forward. We know theRQP will have dramatic land use impacts on the region, and we believe asking and answering allquestions is a critical part of this. Sincerely,Brett Morgan1000 Friends of Oregon |
| 7114 | Alli | Miller | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is irresponsible to not conduct an EIS to see how the new road will impact air quality, safety and assess other potential hazards. Will the increase of cars increase water pollution and road runoff into water systems? Will increased car travel release more CO2 into the air and damage air quality? Will the impact of the roads cause any erosion or other soil patterns that may destabilize existing grounds? An EIS can address these concerns. Also, we don t need more cars and roads in an area of town that should have more parks, sidewalks, and bikeways. The more walkable a community the better it is for the environment, local economy, and livability of an area. |
| 7115 | Chris | Sims | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Our roads currently produce 40% of the state s pollution, and the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion would produce even more. Even more pollution in a neighborhood that historically suffers physical and social harm from the freeway. Even more pollution when the science clearly indicates freeway expansions don t work. Even more pollution when our state (and the world beyond it) are facing climate catastrophe after climate catastrophe. I am wholeheartedly opposed to the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. For the sake of our community, for the sake of our state, and the sake of our planet - do not make this mistake. |
| 7116 | Marie | Gadda | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding freeways has been proven to not reduce traffic. Just google it, it s really not debatable. To combat climate change we NEED to move away from our culture of personal vehicles. We need to make a bikeable, walkable, transit based city. Do NOT expand I5 |
| 7117 | Justyna | Goworowska | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am opposed to the expansion of I-5 in the Rose Quarter. We know that adding lanes just leads to more traffic, due to induced demand. Time to invest in active transportation modes and reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions. |
| 7118 | Seth | Anderson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in this area and am opposed to expansion. This neighborhood has gone through so much trauma and needs investment in its people not in cars rolling through. I don t think it it is right to further displace business and people, including a middle school, and increase traffic safety risks when we should be focused on how to make people safer and encourage fewer cars. I believe that more environmental studies should be done and odot should look into tolling and other alternatives before investing in more polluting behaviors. Adding caps instead of lanes could help with pollution and build a stronger community and city center as opposed to further damaging a hurt community. |
| 7120 | Seth | Anderson | Supplemental EA public comment period: Lids not Lanes and a full EIS for Rose Quarter |
| 7121 | Lindsay | Hessel | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Every road project needs to take into account all the impacts it will have on the surrounding area and the safety of those trying to live nearby. We should be prioritizing transportation that is not centered on private vehicles to meet urgent climate goals and ensure the safety of anyone not in a car. |
| 7122 | John | Biederman | I am for fixing the Rose Quarter Freeway. It is too congested and unsafe. It is bad for businesses. I am against tolling. We pay enough taxes and that is what tolling is. See my list at bit. ly/3hXkNWI |
| 7123 | Scott | Cohen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Before embarking on final design and construction of a highway expansion project in the heart of the city, all agencies involved and the public deserve to know the Rose Quarter project's full impact. Give Portlanders and Oregonians the chance to fully understand the project's impact before saying its too late to change course. ODOT has the chance to rebuild the public's trust with an EIS. ODOT has the opportunity to show the community that it has nothing to hide and that this project really does serve all of us. While an EIS won't completely restore the public trust, it will go a long way towards dismissing the notion of back room deals deciding our transportation, equity, and climate fate for the next 50 years. Yes, that's how important this project is. |
| 7124 | fred | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I feel this is a great plan | |
| 7125 | Scott | Murray | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,Please conduct an EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Sincerely,Scott Murray |
| 7126 | Jackie | Ruff | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Without an EIS, we will not know how this construction will effect things like the local wildlife or the nearby river. An EIS needs to be completed before the freeway expansion can even be considered. |
| 7127 | Jennifer | Eykamp | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In light of climate change, ODOT needs to put their freeway expansion programs on hold and consider ways to reduce the number of cars on the road. At the very least, they need to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. More lanes of highway equals more cars on the road. Especially since this freeway runs through a historically marginalized district of Portland, the environmental impacts of a potential expansion should be thoroughly investigated and every effort made to reduce the harm that this freeway is causing to the bodies of every person living in the area. |
| 7128 | Thomas | Craig | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Oregon DOT:There must be an Environmental Impact Statement conducted for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Our region is considering monumental investments that on their face are out of step with our stated goals. We want to reduce our contributions to climate change and prioritize public and active transportation, but this project promises to put more polluting cars on the road. We need lids. Restoring the urban grid in the Rose Quarter will be a boon to community and to all transportation modes. We do not need lanes. We do not need to expand the freeway in order to add those lids--indeed, widening the freeway will only make the assets we need more expensive. Conduct an EIS!-Thomas CraigNorth Portland |
| 7129 | David | Burns | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT needs to a full EIS before expanding any freeway in Portland. Nobody has studied other options, and the current plan does not mitigate impacts to a middle school. This is immoral, and so is ODOT's dishonesty throughout this process. |
| 7130 | Damian | Hinman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Highways and expansions are a terrible investment. You still need to have a full EIS conducted. We need lids not lanes. We need ODOT to be much, much, much more trustworthy. |
| 7131 | Jackson | Curtin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I believe that conducting an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is very important to ensure the health of our local community. |
| 7132 | Brooke | Thompson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The new EA includes plans for freeway lids capable of holding new buildings across the freeway, crafted with significant feedback by community members including ODOT s Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB). No More Freeways believes the Hybrid 3 caps proposal represents a significant improvement to the design and a victory for our friends at the Albina Vision Trust worth supporting. While No More Freeways celebrates the improvements for neighborhood connectivity on the caps, the reality remains: nearly four years later, ODOT still has done absolutely nothing to address our concerns about the dangerous impacts of the additional lanes of freeway and the congestion it will bring to our streets, the air pollution it will bring to our lungs, and the carbon emissions that it will add to our alarmingly warming planet. |
| 7133 | Linda | Nelson | I oppose expansion for the Rose Quarter I-5 corridor. The neighborhood should not be subjected to such construction and more cars should not be encouraged. Linda Nelson |
| 7134 | Daniel M | Kaufman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need an true environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Rose Quarter Project. It should determine if equitable "congestion pricing" will be a better choice than expanding the freeway. The EIS should also determine what the environmental impact will be of expanding the lanes. The EA is not adequate. I do not trust ODOT to put human beings and the environment over the agency's seemingly insatiable desire to to expand freeways, highways, and automobile use. While we argue against this insanity, more than one person is killed on Oregon's roads each day (540 so far this year)! My eldest son was nearly killed near Cleveland High School by a speeding driver. My younger son was there the day a local chef was killed right out front of Cleveland on Powell. We can and must do better. ODOT needs to be prioritizing safety and climate change not freeway expansion! |
| 7135 | Joseph R | Stenger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in NE Portland and (until recently) worked as a physician at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. I often ride my bike in the Harriet Tubman School area. As a grandfather, I am terrified at the dangerous future we are creating for our offspring. And I care deeply about this neighborhood. Congestion pricing before any highway widening! Follow the recommendations of the Historic Albina Advisory Board and cap the highway (Hybrid 3 model), but without expanding it. We need investments in a rapid shift to more low-cost public transit and much better bike and ped infrastructure to stop the deaths caused by automobiles. We need many more EV charging outlets and EV purchase incentives. We need to bring jobs to where people live so that we can dramatically reduce the need for commuting. We need a full EIS that examines the dangers of highway widening on fragile lungs and hearts and on worsening the climate crisis. We do not need more traffic (induced demand means that widening the highway will result in more tailpipe pollution). We do not need more ICE exhaust causing asthma and COPD. We certainly do not need more tailpipe pollution next to Tubman School!We need public dollars to be creating the new low-carbon future, not perpetuating the mistakes of the past with huge investments in concrete for gas-powered cars and trucks. I urge you: Do cap the highway, do conduct a full EIS, do invest in safe low-carbon transportation options, do not widen I-5 as part of the Rose Quarter project! |
| 7136 | Collin S | Ferguson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT and PBOT,First, I want to say that it's my pleasure to be able to share with you my thoughts about the proposed freeway expansion of I-5. I greatly appreciate your efforts. More often than not, I am an absolute fan of my transportation departments. I feel that all of you do great work. I hope all of you have had a wonderful holidays and will soon enjoy a Happy New Year!Second, let's talk about the proposed Rose quarter freeway expansion. No. Well maybe, but not without a complete environmental impact statement. But, really, no. Our objective should not be improving traffic conditions for suburbanites. Instead, 100% of our focus needs to be on climate change. A little more than 10 years ago, I took a GIS course at Portland State University. In that class, my team and I wrote a final project discussing the impact of sea level rise on Oregon Coast cities, as well as Portland, Oregon. 1. 5 ft to 3 ft of sea level rise will only affect the coastal areas. But, anything above 10 ft up to 20 ft, and now the Portland metropolitan area may be affected. In my opinion, we absolutely need to stop using old world views about cities and automobile traffic. While cars are fun, they have caused more trouble than benefit. Burning fossil fuels was a huge mistake. We need to own up to it, and begin mitigating carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Doing so, will ensure that our population and the environment will survive into the long term. Expanding the I-5 freeway and sprawling more suburbs will not get us on a sustainable path. It's more of the same old same old. We need change. And, Oregonians need their transportation departments to be leaders. Nevertheless, I also want ODOT and PDOT to broaden their perspectives on what is possible. Expanding I-5 between the Marquam bridge, and the I-5 bridge to Vancouver, Washington represents an area of historic and significant Urban culture, especially for people of color long destroyed by our hindered freeway system. In my opinion, our freeway system is inadequate because it never was built with the people's perspective in mind. Instead, it was thrown at us, and either we accepted it, or. . . But, as is traditional in Portland, the people fought the proposed design. The Mount Hood freeway was never developed, and the secession of Maywood Park delivered a clear message that Portlanders were never going to accept the initially proposed freeway system. Since that time, we have developed light rail, streetcar, and world class mass transit infrastructure that needs focus yet again. Why are we wasting our time with automobiles? We can develop suburban neighborhoods that commute via commuter train and light rail. Why are we drifting back to automobiles? We even have a president that wants to support the expansion of rail. Imagine converting I-5 between the Fremont Bridge and the Marquam Bridge to urban refill (that includes much needed affordable housing) and a significant rail station similar in size and scale to Pennsylvania Station in New York, New York. Union Station is wonderful, but it's small. It can support some expansion, but ultimately, we need a new train station. The Central Eastside can host a wonderful station that allows suburbanites to commute sustainably to good jobs in Portland's inner core. So, please do not stop at a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Do the work - all of it. But, really, nixing freeway expansion all together is the better idea. Instead, imagine a new multi-modal transportation infrastructure that features a World Class rail station. Not only will Portland will thank you for it, the Mother Earth [??] will give you a great big hug!Sincerely,Collin S. Ferguson |
| 7137 | Katharine | Huseby | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Odot is being incredibly shady and dishonest about this entire thing. Why should they be trusted? They keep lying and it s been proven over and over again. The evidence is there. Stop trying to make a 12 lane freeway expansion. That s fucking ridiculous and it won t improve traffic. You know what will? Free public transit that s easily accessible to people, but odot is car-centric and doesn t want to hear that. |
| 7138 | Stephen | Gomez | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I oppose the I-5 Rose Quarter expansion proposed by ODOT. Adding lanes will not "reduce congestion" it will induce more demand and quickly result in the same level, if not more, of congestion. Similar interstate expansions in Houston and Los Angeles have demonstrated the fallacy that more lanes equates to less congestion. What c. an address congestion is dynamic pricing of use of the Interstate system in the Portland Metro region. Those funds can then be used to invest in our woeful regional transit system. Lastly, as a resident of the historic Albina community, I fully support the concept of putting lids over the current freeway configuration to support equitable redevelopment of this neighborhood that was destroyed by I-5 |
| 7139 | Rachel | Hunter | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am demanding that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion for three reasons: 1) ODOT s so called desire to fix the injustices of their previous freeway construction has left much to be desired in the past and I don t believe they can be trusted to do so in good faith without an EIS. The proposed freeway caps should be uncoupled from Freeway Expansion and not used as leverage to move the rest of the plan forward. 2) ODOT has deliberately hid crucial details of this plan since it was introduced (e. g. taking land from Harriet Tubman Middle School, to widen the freeway over the Eastbank Esplanade). They should by no means be given carte blanche to move forward with this plan without rigorous investigation into its impact that are also made fully available to the public. 3) In what world do we reduce carbon emissions by widening freeways and encouraging more cars to use them? ODOT has yet to rigorously investigate alternatives to expansion and their assertion that expansion is the only option is cynical and negligent. The planet is warming. Weather is becoming more extreme than and unpredictable. It is already affecting low income communities more than anyone else. We know that carbon emissions from vehicles is a big contributor to the climate crisis and to think that widening a freeway - right in the backyard of a community that has already born the brunt of ODOT s investments and the pollution and health/public safety hazards that have come with them - is, in my view, wildly irresponsible. I hope these comments will be considered in good faith and that ODOT will pursue an EIS. |
| 7140 | Zach | Alderman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT complete an Environment Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because it would reveal to the public just how foolish of an effort the expansion of this highway is. As someone who is greatly concerned about the impending climate disaster across the entire planet, I am gobsmacked that the people at ODOT still plan to worsen our emissions by widening the freeway. The people at ODOT are sacrificing their children's future for the sake of what? Additional freight capacity for Corporations? For far-flung suburban homes that only wealthy people will be able to afford to buy and drive to and from? The money for this project could instead be used to provide excellent infrastructure that builds community by capping the existing highway, improves health outcomes by reducing emissions, increase PERMENANT jobs by rebuilding the urban fabric of Albina, and make our society more climate resilient by reducing our dependence on vehicles. Perform the environmental impact statement, and even better, stop the expansion of 20th century, climate and community killing highways. ________________________________Time: December 27, 2022 at 10:41 am |
| 7141 | belatedly, thank you Brett! | ||
| 7142 | Sky | Cruz | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a lifelong resident of the area (I've always lived within an hour of Portland) I'm very aware of the traffic concerns along the I5 corridor in Portland's city limits. I fully support capping the rose quarter to revitalize the area and improve conditions for nearby residents. I cannot in good conscience support the lane expansions. Lane expansions do not solve traffic conditions, they are band-aid solutions which exacerbate traffic conditions over time. Induced demand from new lanes will only make traffic worse!Lane expansions will also cause considerable harm to nearby residents. Increased air pollution will negatively impact historically marginalized communities. ODOT needs to conduct an Environment Impact Statement. They need to consider alternatives which will actually reduce traffic. Time and time again ODOT has proven that they will not consider these alternatives until thousands of citizens push back. We're not giving up on our city. ________________________________Time: December 27, 2022 at 9:49 am |
| 7143 | Nolan | Hibbard-Pelly | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Stop the freeway it kills animals and the air while lowering livability. Portland needs more places to cross the river for pedestrians and animals safely not cars________________________________Time: December 27, 2022 at 9:32 am |
| 7144 | Vivian | Satterfield | Please find attached Verde's comment regarding the Rose Quarter I5 Project. Thank you,Vivian SatterfieldMake Verde a part of your end of year giving! Click here<https://giveguide. org/nonprofits/verde> Vivian Satterfield (she/her)Director of Strategic Partnerships of Verde<http://www. verdenw. org/> Follow Us: Facebook<https://www. facebook. com/verdenw> | Twitter<https://twitter. com/Verde_NW> | Instagram<https://www. instagram. com/verdepdx/> [cid:image001. png@01D8B8C3. 62367820] |
| 7145 | Linda | Wysong | Dear ODOTAs a Portland resident who lives near I-5, I am responding to your proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion plan. No, it is not ready! You need to do a full Environmental Impact Statement before moving forward and harming the Eliot neighborhood, Harriet Tubman School and all the adjacent areas. More housing is being constructed in the area around the Rose Quarter so the importance of air quality is increasing. The idea of putting lids on the freeway and assisting the restoration of the Albina Community is excellent but it does not give you or anyone, permission to ignore air quality. We should not be building more lanes for diesel trucks and fossil fuel vehicles at this critical time. We need to plan for a greener future. Do not move forward until you look at all the alternatives and have a thoughtful plan that considers the communities impacted by this infrastructure project. On a more personal level, my family lost their home with the original development of I-5 (Michigan Freeway). The city should not endure the additional negative impacts to our green spaces and the East bank Esplanade. Stop, think and do a full Environmental Impact Statement. Linda Wysong |
| 7146 | Aron | Carleson | Build that bridge!! And please don't do LESS than three lanes North and South for auto and truck traffic. Unless the tax codes change, people are going to to continue to live in one state and work in the other. The city of Vancouver is exploding with growth and great opportunities for entertainment and shopping close to the river. Seattle is still the magnet for hitech and biotech and until Amtrak pushes their high speed rail project forward, people will still drive. (Which is better for the planet then flying). Redirect the bridge so that it crosses closer to the rail bridge to the West. That pushes it out of neighborhoods and into industrial. Thus avoiding another humanitarian crisis where the government bifurcates communities of color or those that won't speak for themselves. The 120, Portland Blvd, Rail line. There is room. Clark County has spent billions on 'their side' of I5. Oregon is 20 years behind where we need to be. More. It's been 10 since the first billion was spent on studies. |
| 7147 | Logan | Sweeney | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT needs to conduct an environmental impact statement so that everyone understands the risks associated with this freeway expansion. |
| 7148 | Eva | Frazier | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a driver, a bicyclist, and a small business owner living and breathing in this great state of Oregon. I live 3 blocks from the Rosa Parks on-ramp to I-5. I'm writing today to encourage ODOT to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. As a car owner, I understand how easy it is to hop in the car and drive downtown, but as a human being living in 2022, I cannot sit idle while ODOT encourages more car travel. If we are unwilling to make car travel less convenient, then people will continue to choose that method of travel to the detriment of the environment and the air we breathe. I would love a study of the impacts of this proposed freeway expansion compared to an expansion of rapid transit services and improved active transportation routes. I would love projections of what tolling or congestion pricing could do to help reduce motor vehicle traffic and encourage free flow of freight through our city. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Sincerely, Eva Frazier |
| 7149 | Michael | Andersen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It makes no sense to spend a billion dollars to widen a freeway until we've tested the effect of the road pricing that is widely understood to be on the way. Congestion pricing and tolling should be considered among other alternatives to expansion as part of a full EIS. |
| 7150 | C | Pinckard | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland could be a progressive, in touch, comfortable place to live and enjoyably relaxing environment to get around with well installed, properly implemented, correctly engineered and adequately invested in passenger/commuter rail infrastructure (as could the rest of the state and nation for that matter). We could have electric ferry service and be proactive towards accepting connection to High Speed Rail. Instead, ODOT wants to force dangerous cities, redlining reinforcing racist Robert Moses urban planning, wasteful sprawl of lots of parking lots and asphalt everywhere while we re entering into climate disaster. They want to expand a freeway by a Black school in an area already devastated by community destroying carcentric idiocy for the anti-social concept of the automotive city even though abundant studies have provided ample evidence that it won t work to do anything other than exacerbate congestion from bottlenecks down the road and cause induced demand adding to gridlock and too much traffic. ODOT is entirely corrupt and/or incredibly incompetent. Stop wasting our job earned taxpayer dollars on obsolete crap that was awful to begin with anyway ODOT |
| 7151 | Chris | Jones | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am writing to demand that ODOT complete the EIS statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway expansion. ODOT has not been transparent in it's handling of this project, repeatedly misleading the public about the economic, social and environmental costs of this project. |
| 7152 | Tony | Cochran | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident of North Portland, an area already suffering from poor air quality due to heavy industry, I-5, and poor planning, I am deeply concerned about the the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project. As is well known, adding more lanes to freeways does nothing to stop congestion in the long-term. We need more investment in high-quality public transportation, including a light-rail public transit from Vancouver, with a park and ride, to Swan Island (where I work) and then onto downtown. Please invest in protecting pedestrians, public transit systems, tolls to reduce traffic and put that money into dedicated bike lanes on state owned streets like Lombard. ________________________________Time: December 28, 2022 at 1:04 pm |
| 7153 | Diana | Larsen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: So many reasons too close to school, bad Impact on air quality, bad impact on nearby neighborhoods & hospitals, supports increase in reliance on single occupancy vehicle transportation, and so much more. Just stop it. |
| 7154 | Linda | Wysong | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOTAs Portland resident who lives near I-5, I am responding to your proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion plan. No, it is not ready! You need to do a full Environmental Impact Statement before moving forward and harming the Eliot neighborhood, Harriet Tubman School and all the adjacent areas. More housing is being constructed in the area around the Rose Quarter so the importance of air quality is increasing. The idea of putting lids on the freeway and assisting the restoration of the Albina Community is excellent but it does not give you or anyone, permission to ignore air quality. We should not be building more lanes for diesel trucks and fossil fuel vehicles at this critical time. We need to plan for a greener future. Do not move forward until you look at all the alternatives and have a thoughtful plan that considers the communities impacted by this infrastructure project. On a more personal level, my family lost their home with the original development of I-5 (Michigan Freeway). The city should not endure the additional negative impacts to our green spaces and the East bank Esplanade. Stop, think and do an Environmental Impact Statement. Linda Wysong |
| 7155 | Roger | Goldfinger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident of an area impacted by the freeway expansion, I'm concerned about the impact of the freeway expansion on the environment. Please consider:- The environmental impacts due to additional traffic- The health impacts due to additional traffic- The impact to active transportation users who are in the area around the expansion, including the new/modified ramps. |
| 7156 | Leeor | Schweitzer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This freeway expansion is unnecessary, bad for the climate, and bad for air quality. If you do the full EIS, those fact with rise to the surface. The freeway lids are a great ideas to undo racist harms from when the freeway was built in the first place. I urge you to drop the lane expansion part of the project and use the money only for freeway lids, use the extra money to from not doing an extension to cap a greater portion of the freeway. If a similar amount of money is spent we would still get all of the benefits from offering contracts to MWDB businesses. Please, move forward with the lids and not with extra lanes or wider freeways |
| 7157 | Matt | Meskill | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: BUILD LIDS, NOT LANES. WE STILL NEED A FULL EIS THAT STUDIES ALTERNATIVES TO EXPANSION. It's inconceivable to me that in this age of global climate change we are even considering widening a highway. When your children or grandchildren ask you what you did to help prevent the earth warming, what will you say? When they ask what part you played in fighting climate change how will you answer? It's also shameful that this project is based on the lie that it's a "safety" project. If you truly care about safety there are many other roads in Oregon deserving close attention. |
| 7158 | Jessica | Kelley | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT still has done absolutely nothing to address our concerns about the dangerous impacts of the additional lanes of freeway and the congestion it will bring to our streets, the air pollution it will bring to our lungs, and the carbon emissions that it will add to our alarmingly warming planet. There must be a better way forward. More freeway lanes, more cars, more emissions, more traffic accidents, costs, pollution---this is NOT the answer! ODOT must conduct an environmental impact statement to address these concerns! |
| 7159 | Alexander | Moreno | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It has been proven time and time again that freeway expansions do not reduce congestion, instead often making traffic worse on connecting arterials and local streets. This project is an inefficient use of resources that won't solve the problem it intends to solve and will simply increase to our communities and our city. Alternatives like congestion pricing can be very effective, especially in conjunction with the recent surge in WFH/hybrid work formats that can encourage drivers to commute during the less congested parts of the day. These alternatives must be thoroughly considered, which means a full EIS must be completed. |
| 7160 | Stephen | Bachhuber | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: An EIS should consider if more lanes are necessary when congestion pricing is established. A full range of alternatives must be addressed. The anticipated cost is too high to ignore the cheapest and most effective option. |
| 7161 | Bryan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding highways does nothing to decrease traffic. Expanding public transit will, while making the freeway wider will only be a money sinkhole and displace people, schools, and businesses. I emphatically oppose expanding the Rose Quarter Freeway | |
| 7162 | Joana | Kirchhoff | demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposedRose Quarter Freeway Expansion |
| 7163 | Kevin | Teater | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Do not continue with a freeway widening while continuing to ignore thedevastating effect is has on our livability of our climate, health, finances, and future. Congestion relief never comes from adding lanes. The only proven ways to reduce congestion are by implementing congestion pricing and by reducing the amount that people drive in the first place. You are facing an annual $500M budget deficit. Don't invest in freeway expansions. Instead, invest in true community buildinginfrastructure (protected bike paths, high-quality transit, and freeway lids and freeway removals). |
| 7164 | Craig | Caps are good but no lane expansion please. | |
| 7165 | James | Cavin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are alternatives to expansion, including congestion pricing and tolling that need to be more fully explored. I'm very concerned about the additional air pollution that will result from this project, in addition to the increased carbon dioxide emissions that will make it much harder for Oregon to meet it's carbon reduction commitments. Furthermore, increasing the ease at which traffic is moving into the city will increase the number of cars, and therefore traffic in the city itself. |
| 7166 | Sandra | Joos | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I personally oppose this project and want a full Environmental Impact Statement. ODOT has not been transparent. The agency has deliberately hid numerous records and documents that are necessary for the community to fully understand the impacts this proposed freeway expansion will have on the neighborhood streets, on the air pollution near Tubman Middle School, or the increase in carbon emissions. Repeatedly, ODOT has demonstrated itself to be a bad-faith actor in the efforts to truly invest in infrastructure that addresses our communities' ongoing challenges. We still need an EIS that studies alternatives to expansion. ODOT's own consultants have repeatedly published information showing that all of the benefits of congestion reduction are achieved through congestion pricing, not through freeway expansion. ODOT refuses to even consider if pricing is a viable alternative to freeway expansion despite decades of evidence suggesting that building more lanes merely encourages more driving. Finally, we need to build Community Lids, not Congested Lanes. I support the efforts of Albina Vision Trust and the Historic Albina Advisory Committee to move forward with caps over the Interstate that will reconnect a community torn apart by racist freeway expansion in a previous century. ODOT should decouple these excellent plans for restorative justice to the Albina Neighborhood from their efforts to add additional lanes of freeway that will clog the streets with cars and the air with pollution. |
| 7167 | Dean | Sigler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: https://arstechnica. com/cars/2021/08/please-stop-adding-more-lanes-to-busyhighways-it-doesnt-help/ We need more and better public transit to alleviate traffic congestion. We need more bike lanes and designated bike paths These are cheaper and safer alternatives to increasing freeway lanes. |
| 7168 | Sandra | Brown | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that objectively studies whether additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at an exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. This request has been made many times, and should be standard protocol, but somehow ODOT shirks this responsibility. Climate leaders do not widen freeways, time to think outside the box, build lids not lanes and be a responsible for doing its part to take on climate change, instead of just more of the same buildout of the freeway industrial complex. |
| 7169 | Sarah | Deumling | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Climate Change is by far the greatest threat humanity (and Oregonians) are facing. We must radically and immediately reduce our fossil fuel emissions which means we must discourage driving, not encourage it. Electric cars alone cannot accomplish this. Anything , such as requiring an EIS in this case, that might discourage driving and reduce VMT is important. ODOT, please focus on alternatives to driving. Many of us are more than ready to accept whatever inconvenience might result for the hope of (a better) life for future generations. Pull yourselves our of your 1950s mindset and put yourselves on the right side of history NOW. Sincerely, Sarah Deumling |
| 7170 | Dennis | Karas | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Re: RQ freeway expansionI believe that freeway expansion everywhere is foolish, enabling, and non-proactive. One condition that encourages use of public transportation is congestion. Expansion exacerbates pollution, builds with cement and other unsustainable materials, and delays the transition to renewable transportation. There are more valuable projects to invest in. Remember that in 1970 the freeway expansion was dropped, which allowed downtown Portland renewal. |
| 7171 | Kathryn | Midson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This is not my first comment on the absurd proposal called the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. In case you don't continue to publicly acknowledge the negative comments you receive, here is another. First of all, framing this expansion as a righting of a wrong to the Albina community is absurd. Add more lanes and more pollution to the existing divide does not reunite a neighborhood even with caps. The caps themselves are okay, just sans extra wide polluting freeway. The entire project should be reviewed for its impact on the environment. Until this is done, not another penny should be spent. No meetings, nothing. I care about this planet. You should too. Show me. |
| 7172 | Nicolai | Kruger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT owes the public an EIA for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. As authors of the built environment, there are consequences to the choices we make however large or small. That was true in the 1950s when established neighborhoods were torn apart and millions of Portlanders were displaced for I-5 to be built. It is still true today. I say this as a Portland-born parent of kids in PPS schools, as an architect and instructor at the PSU Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning: ODOT do your due diligence and conduct a full EIA. |
| 7173 | Melba | Dlugonski | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We know that the difficulties faced by humans are exacerbated by continuing to do the things that got us into the messes. So how do individuals work to change the institutions, to find new solutions? Decision makers use the same tools as though there was no problem. If more knowledgeable had real input, could we mitigate the damage done? I don't know if an EIS can serve this way, but I'm so done with destructive solutions. |
| 7174 | Bill | Bigelow | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As the grandparent of a Harriet Tubman Middle School student, a 15-year Jefferson High School teacher, and a 45-year Portland resident, I join others in demanding that ODOT conduct a robust Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway expansion. At a moment when the climate crisis grows more dire, a freeway expansion constitutes "fossil fuel infrastructure," and is an attack on our community and the future of life on Earth. The least -- the least -- that ODOT can do is to conduct research toward a full Environmental Impact Statement. |
| 7175 | Kristin | Wray | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Massive transportation funding should only be going towards mass transit options. We are too far into our climate crisis to continue to promote car growth. We need more trains, more buses, more money invested towards neighborhood bikeability and walkability. No more freeways. |
| 7176 | Rhiannon | Millar-Griffin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I oppose the freeway expansion altogether we already know the environmental impacts, let s be honest. But it s important to conduct the EIS so we can have a full understanding of how it ll impact our communities but the impact is not worth it. Fewer cars on the road and more efficient and streamlined public transportation, NOT more freeways and lanes, that s what pdx community is crying out for. |
| 7177 | Michael | Landauer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The thought of adding another lane to pollute the air adjacent to an already underserved school is sickening to me. Lids not lanes! |
| 7178 | Ryan | Swofford | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is well past time to stop widening freeways. We need real solutions to transportation that will help stave off climate change and not fall into the pit of induced demand. Expanding the rose quarter freeway will be a waste of billions of dollars that could rather be put towards expanding public transit services or bike infrastructure, not dumping money into climate killing cars. Do better ODOT. |
| 7179 | J reyesha | Brannon | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland s frontline communities continue to experience climate change with the worst and first impacts. Oregon has a required environmental justice framework that passed in 2021, SCR 17. Environmental Justice and frontline communities must be considered, ideally by putting community at the table where decisions are made. I m not only wanting an environmental impact statement, I want it to address cumulative impacts and who it will impact first by way of air pollution, noise pollution, reduction of green space, and who is displaced. Freeway expansion continually sells a false narrative on who and how it will benefit. There is limited evidence on how expanding freeways benefits traffic and is contradictory to statewide climate goals in reducing fossil fuels and carbon emissions. I urge you to conduct an environmental impact statement. |
| 7180 | Mark | Canright | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello, as a young business owner, I want to ensure that are beautiful regions ecosystems are protected from unnecessary sprawl. I respectfully urge you to require an environmental impact statement for the proposed freeway expansion. And please do not allow this project to go through, due to the negative impact it would have upon surrounding wildlife and ecosystems. Instead, let's support expanded public transportation options. Thanks so much for your time, and have a great day and happy Thanksgiving! Take care, mark |
| 7181 | Ro | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Everything "No More Freeways" says makes complete sense to me. It is high time to stop expanding an interstate highway system that was conceived 70 years ago and simply does not fit today'sworld, let alone our future world. Invest in the future, not the past. | |
| 7182 | Mark | Harris | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Can ODOT please get their heads out of their own arse and realize that climate change is a real issue and that we need to face that fact now and provide a better option than widening a freeway and encouraging more traffic in a densely populated downtown area. |
| 7183 | Rick | Ray | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: My family loves the idea of building freeway caps over I-5 included in Hybrid 3. Expanding freeways is not a good idea: just more cars and the need for more expansion in a few years. |
| 7184 | Veronica | Poklemba | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The city needs to act in relation to its goals to decrease air pollution and carbon in our environment. Adding lanes to this highway will absolutely increase air pollution and carbon in this community, and throughout Portland; since air is not stagnant. A more thorough EIS needs to be done, and a different solution found that does not increase the number of cars on our roads. |
| 7185 | Mark | Wheeler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT should conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. The freeway should be capped through Portland. |
| 7186 | Brad | Baker | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please perform and EIS. We need to know the true environmental costs of this freeway expansion project. Also please consider adding lids to the existing freeway without expanding it. We know expanding the freeway is going to make driving easier, which is going to lead to more driving, which will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. Let's reconnect the Eliot neighborhood with lids without the harm of more freeway lanes. |
| 7187 | Eric | Casteleijn | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I ask that yo please commit to an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway expansions. We are literally killing the planet and ourselves with our greenhouse emissions. Please invest in good public transit instead. |
| 7188 | Christopher | Vega | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding the freeway will induce demand, resulting in more cars, more emissions, and less incentive to use greener forms of transport. An EIS should be conducted to fully outline and understand the impact such an expansion will have. |
| 7189 | Hau | demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion | |
| 7190 | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Climate catastrophe is in progress. Increasing freeway capacity adds, for well established reasons, the volume of fossil-fuel-burning vehicles and their climate harming emissions. Climate harming emissions must not increase but instead dramatically decreased. | ||
| 7191 | Lenny | Dee | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Climate impacts need to be fully understood |
| 7192 | Peter | Warton | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In this time of extreme weather events brought about by unprecedented global warming, it is deeply irresponsible - and immoral, frankly - to continue spending billions of public funding dollars developing transportation infrastructure centered around driving. Your single highest priority for every single project in your portfolio should be reducing vehicle miles traveled. Spending vast amounts of money to widen freeways is literally madness, especially when you look at the data which shows that you can't "solve" congestion by adding more capacity (you just move the bottlenecks to other places). You must do the full environmental impact study which will support everything in the above paragraph. This is for OUR future as Oregonians, get out of your ODOT bubble and do the right thing. Peter |
| 7193 | Brittney | Halstrom | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are stepping ever closer to a climate disaster . The very least our government can do is complete an environmental impact statement to better inform the public of the consequences of this project. To shirk this duty would be negligent. |
| 7194 | Phil | Sano | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The world is full of bad faith actors. The most dangerous are the corporations and governments that are continuing to expand infrastructure that will make our planet uninhabitable in my lifetime. I don't trust ODOT, as I've seen them parade a series of lies to justify their unsustainable actions. |
| 7195 | Thor | Hinckley | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Because of the potential for increasing GHG emissions from the large number of new vehicles this expansion would induce. Without a thorough EIS, we would not have an adequate understandingof these impacts. |
| 7196 | Karen | Austin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please conduct an Environmental Impact Statement that looks into detail about why the building of the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is needed. Research tells us that Induced demand of "improved" and enlarged highways like Rose Quarter Freeway could possibly produce an addition 17. 4 to 34. 8 million miles of vehicle travel and 7. 8 to 15. 5 thousand tons of greenhouse gases per year, according to research (https://cityobservatory. org/calculating-induced-demand-at-the-rose-quarter/). Alternatively, crowded freeways can induce car owners to leave their car at home or at the train station, and to take public transportation, some of which is fossil fuel free (https://www. zocalopublicsquare. org/2017/08/01/building-freeways-makes-traffic-orse-ot-better/ideas/nexus/). You could use the money that would have been used on enlarging the freeway, or you could use the same money to improve public transportation to induce drivers to use the more climate friendly options. This is Portland! Not Florida. If you can't follow the climate friendly path there, then our planet is toast for sure! Sincerely, Karen Austin, 350 Eugene member |
| 7197 | Matthew | Morrissey | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Build freeway lids not lanes. Quit making it easy to kill the planet. We don't need to expand our highways, we need better amenities for cyclists and pedestrians. |
| 7198 | Karstan L | Lovorn | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm a data-driven person. I like to see transparent and evidence-based decision making from my government entities. Any claims they make should be supported and verifiable. I haven't found ODOT to be particularly reliable so far when it comes to this, but there's a first time for everything. ODOT has claimed that the RQ project will improve air quality and reduce Greenhouse emissions. The first Environmental Assessment was vague and lacked sufficient, verifiable data. A lawsuit was filed largely because of that missing data. So we find ourselves here now, once again asking ODOT to just show us the numbers. I genuinely can't see a legitimate reason why an EIS isn't a primary milestone for ODOT on projects like this. How much money and time has been wasted trying to avoid conducting one? I've seen several claims from ODOT that this expansion will improve air quality in the area. I've also seen assertions (from folks who don't make their livings off of expanding highways) that it would do the exact opposite. Wouldn't an EIS provide the data to prove one claim or the other? Lacking that data, then ODOT should move on to data-driven models for improving air quality and reducing greenhouse emissions. One such method is congestion pricing. What other methods are there that don't involve expanding the highway? The Hybrid 3" proposal that finally generated in response to public pressure seems like it might be one. On top of reconnecting a community that was previously torn apart by ODOT, it could provide a walkable, bike-able, transit-friendly neighborhood that reduces the need for Single-Occupancy Vehicle commuting on said highway (heck, let's just do this Hybrid 3 thing anyway. Seems like a good idea). I'm sure there are a half-dozen other methods that ODOT could explore that don't involve expanding a highway. But we don't know about them because the EIS hasn't been done. If ODOT is truly committed to being open and honest, and providing data-based solutions to the problems it hopes to help solve then an EIS is absolutely imperative. |
| 7199 | Bear | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In the year 2022, we cannot simply continue to expand for the sake of expansion as we did in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc. We need real fixes, not some profit-driven monstrosity of a project that has not and will not fix the issues proposed by the people pushing for it to be built. It is FAR past time we look at new ways to manage transportation in our cities and towns in a way that will actually benefit our community and our environment. Enough. | |
| 7200 | Frances | Green | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have lived next to the freeway for 19 years! my whole life I have suffered from the pollution, the noise, and the gash down the middle of my neighborhood that left it unwalkable. freeway expansions have been proven over and over again to be ineffective in reducing traffic and lead to an increase in emissions. so what exactly are you spending all this money for?? who benefits? certainly not the people of Portland. not the planet. not the kids like me who's future is scarred by the fear of climate change. invest in public transportation, clean energy, and PEOPLE!! or if you insist on continuing this project out of greed and unwillingness to consider creative options, at least be honest about it. |
| 7201 | Jules | Boykoff | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To Whom It May Concern, I am writing in regards to the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. The gist of my missive is to implore you to confront the climate crisis with the vim and verve that the situation demands. ODOT has voiced concern for global heating; now is the time to sync up your sentiments and actions. With that as a backdrop, I urge you to, at the very least, conduct an environmental impact statement for your freeway expansion proposal. More generally, I ask you to seriously consider ceasing all freeway expansion, as that just generates additional incentive to drive. There are so many other ways that people could get around, including public transportation. Dollars spent on freeway expansion could be redirected into areas that directly address the climate crisis. In addition, I urge you to side with the suggestions emerging from the Historic Albina Advisory Committee and the Albina Vision Trust to move forward with caps over the interstate that could help a community that was negatively effected to a disproportionate degree by previous freeway expansion. Please separate these well-considered plans for the Albina neighborhood from the addition of new highway lanes that will only exacerbate air pollution and contribute to climate change. Thank you for your consideration, Jules Jules Boykoff Professor and Department Chair Pacific University in Oregon Department of Politics and Government |
| 7202 | Charles | Townsend | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: An Environmental Impact Statement must be conducted to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the Eliot neighborhood. I am a resident of Eliot and there is no need for additional capacity on a freeway that is used by commuters through this area who are not impacted by this infrastructure. Widening freeways never solves the long term issue of congestion as other projects have shown. The laws of induced demand are at play here. Also why widen the freewayswhen tolling has not been added yet? Seems like a cart before the horse scenario. So a full Environmental Impact Statement should be completed before any additional work is to be done. Also given ODOTs track record of less than transparent communication there is no trust left in this state agency to do the right thing. The money that is being spent on this project could be better spent elsewhere on more permanent infrastructure that would reduce congestion and the climate impacts of automobile use. |
| 7203 | Mike | Farrell | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT should not just widen freeways because it is fun. You must conduct a complete Environmental Impact Statement. Widening the freeway throught the Rose Quarter will produce morepollution in this area and our city. It will lead to more smog days and increases air quality warnings. The reduced air quality greatly affects the people closest to the freeway and across the city. We already spend several weeks every summer with our house closed up because of poor air quality. Putting more cars on freeways will only make this worse. |
| 7204 | Anna | Fritz | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We cannot be putting resources into expanding infrastructure for motor vehicles when the world is already experiencing the climate chaos caused by excessive burning of fossil fuels. I'm glad that ODOT has included the voices of Black Portlanders in this project and I want to see freeway caps that will help to heal some of the damage done with the racist way this freeway was originally constructed. But this can and should be done WITHOUT expanding the freeway, increasing traffic and pollution and contributing further to climate chaos. The conduct of ODOT in the course of this project has been unconscionable. There have been so many false claims and hiding of information from the public that it is hard to trust the agency at all. We need full transparency and a full EIS that truly studies alternatives to expansion, as there are many viable ones! |
| 7205 | Stewart | Buettner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: --Expansion of the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter is expensive. --Please, keep the proposed lid and the restorative justice rebuilding of the Albina portion of the current proposal. --Eliminate widening I-5. --As proposed, expansion promises only short-term congestion relief. --In the longer term it will just bring additional traffic, hence more congestion to the area. --And also greater pollution to the surrounding neighborhood. --I have searched for and cannot find a completed Environmental Impact Statement that studies alternatives to expansion. If there is one, where can I find/read it? Stewart Buettner |
| 7206 | Mary | Brewster | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I believe we must build our infrastructure for the future and that what we build determines what we will embrace. Please dedicate highway-expansion funds to mass transit rather than accommodation for more and more vehicles. Highways have never alleviated traffic--they create traffic. We can do better. |
| 7207 | Douglas | Kelso | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I bicycle through the Rose Quarter area on my commute between downtown and NE Portland. I'm very concerned about the impact of ODOT's Rose Quarter proposals on bicycle commuting, in particular the addition of a new off-ramp to N Williams that will make it even riskier to bike there than it is today. More broadly, it is essential that ODOT prepare a detailed Environmental Impact Statement that compares the costs and benefits of congestion tolling on the existing lanes with the costs and benefits of building additional freeway lanes and changing ramps. If congestion tolling can produce comparable or better congestion relief in a shorter timeframe at a substantially lower cost than widening the freeway, that needs to be placed side-by-side with freeway expansion for comparison. |
| 7208 | Cory | Pinckard | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Oregon owes a lot of its strengths to rail infrastructure, much of which unfortunately no longer even exists. The further we move away from the logical layout provided by streetcar grids and electric commuter interurban railroads the uglier and less livable the city and its suburbs become. An intelligent coastal city would take advantage of this limited time of people crowding in to install city assets that will benefit us for generations such as a rail route beneath the Willamette and railway going between Vancouver and us. It makes perfect sense to build the full Southwest Corridor (Purple) Line with railway stations on Marquam Hill and at Portland Community College Sylvania Campus, for example, and zero sense not to. EV s are a greenwashing consumerist centered, greed based pseudo-solution that also (along with ICE vehicles) destroy the environment by releasing greenhouse gases through resource mining, manufacturing processes pollutants and ultimately going to the landfill in mass droves. The pollution they cause is simply unnecessary as is the amount of urban space squandered on parking and other paved over autocentric wastes. They also perpetuate urban sprawl, redlining, the food deserts invariably caused by it, along with cities that are not navigable as a pedestrian or bicyclist and are, in fact, inhospitable to humanity along with being horrendous towards animals. Isn t it ironically sad that streets divide us more than connect us and impede us from trying to get to where we re trying to go? EV s add to traffic congestion. Commodification of societal necessities and normalization of trying to substitute rampant consumerism where we need standardized, regulated and uniform public utilities doesn t work. Putting the financial burden of transportation inefficiently and directly on the individual citizen is simply not wise or fair and hasn t been the norm for even 80 years. The fines, fees, road subsidies, permits, tickets, tolls, insurance and more that go into paying for an automobile is a colossal boondoggle strangling the nation from citizen to citizen with that ridiculous albatross hanging around their neck. To form the bone structure of walkable places we need to invest in commuter rail that s properly implemented as it typically is overseas. A commuter rail system is an engineering marvel while buses are just buses. The most reliable predictor of a neighborhood being impoverished is if it has no commuter rail connection (which Robert Moses intentionally famously forced to happen by having overpasses for cars too low for commuter rail to continue to run beneath them along with a ton of other disgusting ploys). The American people are apathetic through decades of disenfranchisement and a lot of that marginalization (eg Robert Moses s racist urban renewal) is through divestment of public infrastructure, utilities and programs to help the American people. How many special places were destroyed fated to become mere parking lots? How many lives were wrecked as entire communities and cultural centers of minorities were wiped off the face of the world as though an atomic bomb had been dropped on it in order to force through highway robbery highways were pushed through the wreckage and rubble of razed annihilation that those same victims now in atomized diaspora had to then help subsidize which is often the case with the rapid onslaught and constantly rupturing outbreak of mediocre monstrosities being raised all over the place currently, looming gloomily over neighborhoods they ve doomed as ugly tombstones in the special spaces and places of what was demolished for them to be erected. We re past the point of car dominated transportation being anything better than a tragic hindrance or an outright travesty. Public works materially improving life for the taxpaying citizenry will bolster civic pride. Transcontinental High Speed Rail should integrate seamlessly with commuter rail networks so it can evenly function as one cohesive system and this will convert flyover country back into a thriving heartland by functioning as an artery of commute and commerce which will reduce clustering on the coasts. Similarly, wholly integrated circuits of commuter rail blended with interurban routes, light rail lines, street car grids, subways, and even trolleys along with electric ferries functioning together as a comprehensive series of interwoven systems would prevent people from having to live on top of each other in city centers in order to have quick access to urban cores and downtown areas so this would stimulate our local economies and prevent gentrification from demolishing cherished heirlooms of our historicity, destroying our classic neighborhoods, shredding the fabric of our communities and toppling our civic landmarks and architectural heirlooms along with other social capital such as venerable culture generating venues. Numerous studies show that built environments of homogenously bleak and bland duplitecture dreck made from extremely toxic and highly flammable petrochemicals that profiteering developers push on us for their privatized gains to our public loss for the riches of themselves and price gouging corporate slumlords not only cause homelessness from being financially inaccessible to most Americans, but also cause depression from creating such a devastatingly sterile, cold, unloving urban habitat that s too congested and overcrowded to work properly as a correctly engineered built environment. Our roadways are overcrowded and no amount of widening them and adding lanes will do anything to help it because it just leads to induced demand that inevitably grinds to a halt at snags and bottlenecks down the road. Shouldn t American cities be thriving centers of culture and character rather than austere and chintzy morasses of mediocrity? I believe that we can design the cities of our nation to reflect a future that embraces humanity and that we also must for America to have any sort of a bright future ahead of it. Right now we are mired in the destruction of our cities from the inward attacking neocolonial oppressors who weaponize their clout of wealth against the nation for their own off-shore un-American gains of privileged, parasitic, private profits. This greed fueled anti-social exploitation is present day feudalism driving us into another gilded age. Tons of new brutalist luxury living housing units remain empty serving only as financial assets in investment portfolios of hedge fund and permanent capital firm cretins sheltering dubiously acquired wealth instead of as direly needed shelter for humans. We deserve a landscape we can be proud of and country should come first before corporate looting and exploitation. Legacies are important and live on forever. With space opened up in our cities we could rebuild beloved structures gone from economic and environmental disaster utilizing new technologies such as hempcrete and 3-D printing. We could create vertical agriculture farms etc. on spots currently now just serving as paved over squares and nothing more. We can extend democracy into offering the taxpayer residents democratic say in what their city consists of, how it looks and how it operates promoting civic engagement and participation. |
| 7209 | Michele | Reeves | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Honestly, given climate change, America needs to immediately begin retrofitting its most walkable places to be 100% livable without cars. University of Southern Denmark study found that if the entire world pedaled as much as the Dutch do, global carbon emissions would fall by nearly 700 million tonnes per year. That's more than Canada's entire carbon footprint. So not only should we not be widening lanes, we should just remove I5 between 205 and 205 and create a transit bike superhighway in the city with a boatload of affordable housing. A first step toward a rational rethink of the valuable land occupied by I5 in the city is, at the very least, a full environmental impact statement. |
| 7210 | Jay | Cosnett | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Stop ignoring public input, and court decisions, and wasting our time! Lawsuits have proven that ODOT didn t study alternatives to expansion, didn t look at the possibility of implementing congestion pricing without adding new lanes of freeway, that ODOT didn t study the cumulative impacts of their proposed freeway expansions across the region, and that ODOT didn t provide the necessary data for ANY independent agents (you know, like WE THE PEOPLE!) to study. NO MORE FREEWAYS. We are already killing ourselves and each other fast enough, and you want to, literally, step on the GAS? HELL NO! |
| 7211 | Jay | Cosnett | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Stop ignoring public input, and court decisions, and wasting our time! Lawsuits have proven that ODOT didn t study alternatives to expansion, didn t look at the possibility of implementing congestion pricing without adding new lanes of freeway, that ODOT didn t study the cumulative impacts of their proposed freeway expansions across the region, and that ODOT didn t provide the necessary data for ANY independent agents (you know, like WE THE PEOPLE!) to study. NO MORE FREEWAYS. We are already killing ourselves and each other fast enough, and you want to, literally, step on the GAS? HELL NO! We need a FULL EIS. That s the MINIMUM. Much better would be to cap the existing freeway, add ZERO lanes, and fund some carbon-free alternatives. Unless it reduces driving, it s literally a dead letter. A deadly one, actually. |
| 7212 | Mulysa | Melco | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are in the midst of a climate crisis and environmental racism is happening all around us. Let's not make it worse by prioritizing space for vehicles instead of investing in mass transit and negatively impacting Harriet Tubman middle school. STOP this project and come up with a solution with real alternatives to pollution, noise and injustice. |
| 7213 | Joshua | McCarty | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It has come to my attention that ODOT is planning a major highway expansion that has not been thoroughly studied, does not follow the rules of NEPA, and will harm the Portland community in a variety of ways. I am writing to express my opposition to any freeway expansion or highway widening of any kind. We should be reducing the highway footprint rather than expanding it. Spending money to expand the highway would be a colossal mistake. ODOT should redo its EIS and consider more options that are modern and evidence based rather than blindly adding pavement. This process feels punitive and follows the same playback as the racist urban renewal policies of the 1960's. It will also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions at a time when we should be reducing them. I plan to support opposition efforts to the fullest extent including financial support and protesting. ODOT should be spending that money on repairing existing infrastructure or expanding non-motorized options. |
| 7214 | Kate | Blumner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland neighborhoods should be more cohesive not less. An EIS is imperative to understand the impact of a freeway expansion on the environment in general and especially on the neighborhoods that surround the freeway, neighborhoods already decimated by ill-conceived and inequitable development. |
| 7215 | Marc | Poris | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please do not expand freeways. Conduct a complete Environmental Impact Statement that examines all potential alternatives to freeway expansion. The goals for any project must include reducing carbon emissions and improving the air quality for everyone in Portland. Please prioritize improving regional public transit over any freeway expansions. |
| 7216 | Austin | Allstadt | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We must build our infrastructure for the future. What we build determines what we will embrace. Please dedicate highway-expansion funds to mass transit rather than accommodation for more and more vehicles. Highways have never alleviated traffic--they create traffic. The world is on fire. We must do better. |
| 7217 | Chris | Shaffer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Build lids, not lanes! As the world approaches climate disaster, we should not be expanding freeways. Instead, ODOT should be working to reverse years of environmental racism that have poured pollutants into the air of our communities. A full environmental impact statement (EIS) must be conducted. All the data supporting ODOT's proposals and decisions must be shared - full transparency in a timely manner - not a continuation of delay and obfuscation. Build the future city and state we want our children to live in - not a car-dominated environmental disaster. |
| 7218 | Martha | Van Dyke | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We don't need a new report. We already know that more freeway space brings more machines, more congestion, more pollution. We already know that we need railroad to move the large things and public transportation to move the people. So why are we messing with more destruction of all life? |
| 7219 | Jenny | Ampersand | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansion like this is a thing of the past. These funds need to be spent on future forward, climate focused initiatives. Lids not lanes! Please conduct an EIS! |
| 7220 | Michael | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland must not be the harbinger of additional environmental inequity. The creation of additional freeway without further studying carbon negative alternatives provides furtherance of unequal air quality, missed opportunity to reduce energy independence, and reduces public usable space. | |
| 7221 | Nic | Petersen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding freeways is not an equitable solution for congestion. It is detrimental to the health of Portland's already marginalized BIPOC community, and is environmentally unsustainable. Expanding freeways has never helped congestion, and it won't work now. |
| 7222 | Nicole | Safranek | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Reconnect broken neighborhoods, prioritize pedestrians and low-carbon transportation, and encourage less freeway driving by investing in freeway lids instead of additional polluting lanes of highway traffic flowing through the heart of the city. |
| 7223 | John | Reeves | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I oppose this expansion of the freeway at the rose quarter. I would support capping the freeway which would go a long way on restoring the area that is blighted by having a freeway run straight through a neighborhood. There is no reason to couple capping the freeway with expanding it. I demand an Environmental Impact Statement for this expansion because I believe it will show that there are plenty of alternatives that will accomplish the same goals without spending billions on this boondoggle that will only make congestion worse in the surrounding areas, harm alternative modes, and make air pollution worse. I've seen the proposal for how bike lanes will work with the new changes and it's horrible, it makes a main bicycle arterial (Williams) into a minefield in this area. We need focus on mode share and things like congestion pricing, along with capping the freeway. Not expansion. |
| 7224 | Jon | Wood | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I want an EIS performed for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion plans to assure good air quality to the surrounding areas. |
| 7225 | Mike | Farrell | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Why won't ODOT do an Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion? Why do we not get to have transparency as to what the total and true cost on the environment, the people, and the people affected by the freeway expansion. It is know that ODOT favors freeway expansion over all else. Does that really help the people ODOT serves? We as the people that ODOT serves should know what the true impact of ODOTs plans are. Why is more freeways the only option that ODOT ever considers. There have to be other options that we can study to assist with transportation. I want to see studies on that. I'm tired of hearing the only option is more freeway lanes, only to hear the same thing 2 years later. This is not planning or consideration. This is lack of curiosity on ODOTs part. Do the study and let people know what is really happening. |
| 7226 | Nancy | Crumpacker | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To avoid more air pollution. |
| 7227 | Ben | Birdsall | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Since the beginning of the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, the Oregon Department of Transportation has lied, misled, and withheld information from the public about their plans to expand the I-5 freeway, while refusing to consider the proposed freeway caps or congestion pricing independent of its expansion plans. At every step, public testimony has overwhelmingly been opposed to freeway expansion and demanded ODOT do a full Environmental Impact Statement. The proposed freeway caps are a net good, which will support the community around I-5 which, it should be noted, was harmed by ODOT's building of I-5 to begin with. They should be decoupled from any expansion of I-5 and pursued by themself. ODOT's plans to expand I-5 (and their language about it not being an expansion has been a dishonest dodge, as they can repaint as many lanes as they like after expanding the freeway footprint) would seriously harm the surrounding community, both in how proposed changes to the nearby traffic patterns would force cyclists to cross more busy roads with no benefit and also in how increased emissions would affect everything in the vicinity of I-5. Additionally, they suggest expanding the freeway would decrease traffic without any evidence to support that idea. Induced demand is an accepted baseline rule of traffic behavior, but ODOT continues to claim that adding lanes would ease traffic, not induce more of it. We need a full EIS to evaluate what their proposed changes would do. Expansion is proposed as the only option, while there are plenty of things that could be pursued instead of, or even in addition to, the proposed expansion. In a time of climate change when vehicle emissions are a large part of Oregon and Portland's carbon footprint, ODOT's proposed expansion is a dangerous and harmful course of action, and should not be pursued without a comprehensive and honest evaluation that ODOT has so far refused to do. ODOT has been dishonest with the public, both in how they have represented their goals and project and in how they have withheld information they not only should have shared but had legal obligations to make public. They have been found negligent in their public records responsibilities, they have provided air quality evaluations that did not honestly include traffic analysis, and they have suggested this project is about safety while not showing any proof that it would be safer while also refusing to fund safety projects elsewhere in Portland on roads they manage and won't let the city make safer. ODOT has been a dishonest partner all along, and should not be allowed to dodge their responsibility to be transparent about this project and also to do a full Environmental Impact Statement. Highway expansion in a time of climate crisis is akin to arson. We need an ODOT that is a partner in finding ways to help Oregon move away from our climate-heavy transportation society, but ODOT has made it clear they will continue to pursue 20th Century solutions unless forced not to. The caps and Albina neighborhood investments they have proposed are good and should be pursued, but they should not be the bribes to let ODOT expand I-5 with inadequate oversight, transparency, and environmental accountability that they have been used as so far. I demand a full EIS for the project, and the decoupling of the Albina neighborhood projects from the disastrous highway expansion ODOT has dishonestly sought. Thank you, Ben Birdsall |
| 7228 | Nick | Hengen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The project has gone through so many shifts and changes--the latest drawings look like they are even more massive--especially the multiple ramps now impacting N Williams Ave. Especially with what appear to be smaller, more limited "caps"--more like the original drawings. Disappointing. As someone who lives, bikes, walks, and drives in this neighborhood, I think total clarity about the environmental impact of any changes I-5 in the Rose Quarter is essential before the project moves forward. The project--with its newest fancy logo!--is not inspiring trust in me. I want the full EIS on a near final design. Thank you. |
| 7229 | John Alex | Arnold | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There is already too much air pollution and displacement of disadvantaged people! This project will make Portland even less habitable. |
| 7230 | Erika | Von Kampen | ODOT must conduct a new Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter freeway expansion as well as viable alternatives such as tolling and increased mass transit. The EIS must take into account the carbon (and CO2-equivalent) emissions of construction, maintenance, existing traffic, and additional traffic induced by freeway expansion. It must also account for the effect of air pollution on the communities along the proposed expansion route, especially Black and Indigenous people and other people of color, who have been disproportionately affected by highway projects past and present. The EIS must be completed quickly, with full transparency and continual engagement with the public to ensure reliable methodology and results. |
| 7231 | Kim | Davis | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: More cars mean more health risks for all living near and downwind. We need to protect the air and water that sustains life! |
| 7232 | Nina | French | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: No more freeways. Better environment and justice for marginalised neighbourhoods! Human overpopulation is a terrible problem. |
| 7233 | Kees | Keizer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: No freeway expansion please. We need to prioritize public transport, bikes and other alternatives. Please also consider pollution, safety, the climate, the need for a less car centric society and an overall better public environment. |
| 7234 | Mariko | demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion | |
| 7235 | Emily W | Herbert | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A full environmental impact of the finalized plan is essential, to assess all the ways this project may harm, especially marginalized folks by air pollution. |
| 7236 | Phil Houston | Goldsmith | I demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion |
| 7237 | Alexander | Hansen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I would like to see a full environmental impact statement for the Rose Quarter Improvement Project because I am skeptical of what ODOT has put forth thus far in terms of the environmental impact of the "Build" option for expanding the freeway. I have read the published Environmental Justice Technical Report and am wholly unconvinced by the document that this project will not have an adverse environmental impact. The document seems to minimize or completely overlook the negative impacts of the build option while disingenuously asserting that the build option is necessary to reduce vehicular air pollution in the area: "The results of emissions modeling of traffic operations were found to be virtually identical between the No-Build and Build Alternatives, with the Build Alternative showing a slight improvement in terms of reduced emissions of mobile source air toxics (approximately 3 percent lower) compared to the No-Build Alternative. " (6. 2. 2. 1) If this reduction in emissions and air toxics is predicated on reduced congestion with vehicles idling on the freeway less, then this can be achieved with other measures in the 'No-build world' such as congestion pricing or improved transit options. It is incredibly reckless, expensive, and destructive to move forward with the project without a more impartial assessment via an environmental impact statement. There will always be a traffic bottleneck to chase for improving motorists' throughput, but a certain amount of congestion must be acceptable if the alternative is so self-destructive as this project will be. |
| 7238 | Matthew | Bogart | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Making sure our actions not only do no further harm to the environment but actively reduce our impact is vital. |
| 7239 | Annie | Capestany | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am originally from Seattle and have seen what a LID can do for a neighborhood. In seattle they have a PARK over I-90. we can do something even better in portland by rebuilding a devastated community of color (and if we use congestion pricing we can avoid adding more lanes. ) But I guess I am getting ahead of myself. The first thing ODOT needs to do is complete a FULL Environmental impact statement. If ODOT wants to regain any trust from the community they need to show that they are doing everything necessary to get the best, safest, most-efficient, smartly funded project. We want to know HOW school children will be affected. We want to know how it will affect the environment. We want to see ALL options fully explored, including a lid, the Hybrid 3 proposal (with no added highway), congestion pricing. . . |
| 7240 | Annie | Capestany | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: no to more lanes, yes on lids no to more lanes, yes on congestion pricing no to more lanes, yes to full environmental impact statement |
| 7241 | Daniel | Pepper | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansion ruins communities. Our air and water quality are already in jeopardy. Not to mention, freeway expansion DOES NOT FIX PROBLEMS. There is DATA to support this. Please learn from other cities, and don't repeat their mistakes. Thank you |
| 7242 | Walter | Mintkeski | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I urge ODOT to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion which studies whether the proposed additional lanes of freeway are necessary and cost effective to reduce congestion. Various ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions. These studies must be included and incorporated into the EIS, and the EIS must identify alternatives which significantly reduce carbon emissions in order to help Oregon meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. |
| 7243 | Alison | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansions are definitely not the answer to a world wrestling with the climate situation we're in (and in a city with some of the poorest air quality in the country and worsening wildfire seasons), and ultimately cause more traffic. Instead, please continue expanding public transit as well as education and encouragement around the use of it -- and listen to the youth, whose future we're affecting daily with this kind of neglectful thinking. We know everyone loves their cars and the independence it brings, but this mentality has obviously become unsustainable. | |
| 7244 | Stuart | Steidle | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello,As someone sick after their booster shot, all I can say is DO NOT BUILD A FREEWAY IN SE PDX. You ll be continuing a toxic legacy of highway expansion that has ruined communities in every major city in this country. Think and act with more innovation so that we build wholesome, liveable areas where life is not centered around cars- or at least does not accede to them at every turn. Thank you |
| 7245 | Barbara | Gicking | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: With the impacts of climate change impacting us everyday, it is unconscionable for ODOT to be considering expanding the Rose Quarter freeway without a full EIS report. Especially with the Harriet Tubman School right next to the proposed project. At this point the only project that ODOT should be considering is capping the freeway to restore the continuity of the Albina neighbor hoods and freeway tolling. Tolling has been shown to reduce traffic by 12% and certainly is immeasurable cheaper and probably more effective than freeway expansion. I have driven I 405 through Seattle many times and see that the tolling works extremely well at reducing traffic. I also drive Hwy 26 which is continually expanded and then more cars come and we have the same congestion that the expansion was supposed resolve. Tolling should be tried in this location as well. It's extremely disheartening to see how misleading and secretive ODOT is behaving with this project and ready to jam it through despite public opposition. With climate change we need fewer cars on the road, so tolling and capping the freeway are the only reasonable solutions at this juncture. Thank you, Barbara Gicking |
| 7246 | Shelby | Schroeder | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm writing in opposition to the proposed I-5 Expansion. It's apparent that ODOT isn't conducting a truthful campaign about the consequences (increased air pollution, noise, neighborhood impacts) and ineffectiveness (not reducing travel times) that will result from this project. ODOT needs to conduct a full EIS to bring transparency to this project. The only aspect of this project I support is capping the highway to make buildable space for equitable development. |
| 7247 | Sam | Yerke | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT has not faithfully demonstrated to the public that they have explored alternatives options to their proposed plans. A full EIS should be conducted. This project will have major impacts to the heart of our city for many generations to come. Rushing this through without properly exploring the impacts to our community is irresponsible. I do not support the current ODOT plan. |
| 7248 | Karen | Ashikeh | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This massive freeway expansion will utilize all highway funds for one Hwy 5 expansion . Expand the existing bridge and add the METRO Lightrail train system from Portland to Vancouver for commuters, connecting with the AMTRAC train station in Washington so people can move on to Seattle from there on the existing commuter trains. PREVENT anything that expands ( encourages) individual auto travel, including options for a truck lane to carry freight across the bridge. Create systems that discourage individual auto use trips, with low cost vehicle sharing options like buses and frequent light rail trains on both sides that is free or very low cost for commuters instead of a massive spends on building a roadway that will take 10 years to build and will create massively more vehicle use with fossil fuel and particulate matter pollution. |
| 7249 | Danny | Cage | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear Oregon Department of Transportation,For the record, my name is Danny Cage and I have the honor of serving on Oregon's Environmental Justice Council as a state board appointed by Governor Kate Brown. I am writing today in strong support of the Oregon Department of Transportation conducting an environmental impact statement on the proposed Rose Quarter freeway expansion. As the climate crisis continues nationwide and more importantly in our state of Oregon It is important for us not only to implement environmental justice in our work but have it simply embedded in our processes so it is not an afterthought. As both a young Oregionain who is a member of frontline communities and a state board member of the Environmental Justice Council it is important to me how ODOT conducts itself. Recently Oregon passed HB 4077 which allows natural resource agencies which ODOT is defined as to request consultation from Oregon's Environmental Justice Council. I believe that the Oregon Department of Transportation should request consultation from the Environmental Justice Council on the Rose Quarter proposal as both past and present freeway projects have proven to be problematic, controversial, and lacked collaborative community engagement. I request that not only do an environmental impact statement but also address the impact the freeway may have such as noise pollution, green spaces, etc. I urge you to conduct an environmental impact statement |
| 7250 | Samantha | Berkman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: No more freeways! |
| 7251 | Mende | Smith | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Rebuilding freeways is not in the best interest of an ecosystem for Portland, Oregon. It is a great time to listen to what the public has to say. |
| 7252 | Andrew | Blumm | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Has there been a single highway widening project that has reduced traffic in the long-term ever? Seriously, try to name just one. Throwing a billion dollars at a futile roadway improvement that will be disastrous to the environment is an abhorrent mistake. This is a ridiculous proposal which demonstrates complete and willful ignorance of the current ecological disaster. |
| 7253 | Linore | Blackstone | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT, People, what is your ethic? I cannot suppose you are ignorant of the coming/beginning collapse of our earth's systems. Why this push to build more freeways--the existential or the economic reason? Try and act with integrity. Why are you refusing an EIS? Is it because you know it is not environmentally justified? There are always consequences to our continuing to damage the life of and on this planet. Are our human minds unable to think or believe in collapse? We will have to put it all back together, |
| 7254 | Mirabai | Peart | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In this time of climate crisis, we must build our infrastructure for the future and that means dedicating funds to mass transit rather than highway-expansion and accommodation for more and more vehicles. Highways have never alleviated traffic--they create traffic. We must do better! |
| 7255 | Ryan James | Francesconi | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: When I first moved to portland I rented a house near in the Mississippi Neighborhood. The vibration from the I5 was so terrible that I had to immediately move again. Having these freeways running through the center of portland is terrible for all reasons Portland. If you disagree, you should try living next to it. |
| 7256 | Val | Snyder | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This freeway expansion project would lock us into more fossil fuel infrastructure and expose the Harriet Tubman Middle School to dangerous levels of pollution. We need a full EIS that studies alternatives to freweay expansion. |
| 7257 | Jacob | Apenes | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have lived in Portland, OR for my short, 24-year life. I have seen traffic continue to grow across I-5 and the growing frustration with navigating in and out of Portland by car. I have also seen wildfire smoke flood the air I breathe, creating skies of red and orange that only sunsets are allowed to paint. My anxiety from the climate crisis continues to grow as I see governments stall to take meaningful steps to combat their carbon emissions. Increasing the number of lanes on I-5 will exacerbate my anxiety and will worsen the livelihoods of the thousands of Portlanders living on the eastside. Not only will this increase pollution in the adjacent neighborhoods like Albina, Boise, and Lloyd, extra lanes on I-5 will only lock additional carbon emissions into Portland in exchange for marginal and temporary benefits to traffic decongestion. 1. 45 billion dollars is an extraordinary amount of money that could be spent on public transportation or on housing. Please consider allocating the money to actual crises, not on traffic. The proposed freeway caps over I-5 are a proposal I approve of. Using additional funding to build housing atop these caps is a cherry on top. Please conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. We need a solution that will protect our environment, and care for the people of Portland. Thank you. |
| 7258 | Anna | Cowen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: No More Freeways is in emphatic support of the proposed freeway caps over I-5 included in Hybrid 3. We are grateful for the continued advocacy from Albina Vision Trust and the wisdom of the Historic Albina Advisory Board to heal the neighborhood previously torn apart by ODOT freeway construction sixty years ago. No More Freeways strongly supporters continued investment in the Albina neighborhood including the freeway lids, affordable housing and safer streets without also adding additional cars and air pollution into the neighborhood brought about by the significant freeway expansion below the surface level streets. ODOT likes to talk a big game about their commitment to restorative justice, but their proposal to fix the injustices of their previous freeway construction shouldn t come with strings or lanes attached. We believe the Hybrid 3 proposal should be funded and decoupled from ODOT s original proposal to add 1. 8 miles lanes of polluting freeway. |
| 7259 | Jonathan | Poisner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I regularly drive on I-5 through the Rose Quarter. While I experience occasional delays, I very much disagree with the proposal to expand the number of lanes. The financial cost would be extraordinary compared to the very minor travel time benefits that might possibly be achieved in the future. I'm also distressed at the failure to do a full Environmental Impact Statement in which you evaluate the impacts to air quality and the climate from the extra travel and air pollution the expansion (and its construction) would cause, especially air quality impacts on the immediate neighborhoods. An EIS is also essential to truly look at alternatives(such as tolling) that could significantly reduce the traffic congestion without requiring the construction. Sincerely, Jonathan Poisner |
| 7260 | Nancy | Church | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Actually, I'm in favor of fixing the issues created in the original design of the I-84/I-5 interchange - the shrinkage of the south-bound lanes from 4 to 2 in such a short distance is terrible! I almost lost my life there once because of it. |
| 7261 | Brice | Suprenant | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT conduct an environmental impact statement because history tells us ODOT is not transparent with the citizens of Portland. We cannot have another highway expansion that causes more displacement, pollution, and promotes more cars on the streets. We need to stop making concessions for automobiles and instead expand public transportation and bike/pedestrian infrastructure. There are ample alternatives to adding more highways that with significantly reduce traffic and congestion. Ignoring them is willful ignorance. If we are truly a city that is wanting to be a beacon of climate justice than it must start with the highways and finding every alternative possible to get more cars off the streets. And the environmental impact is only the beginning. The negative effects on these neighborhoods involved will be massive. Haven't the Albina residents suffered enough from the environmental racism and negligence repeatedly shown by ODOT? A full, public environmental impact statement must be provided before any further plans are made. |
| 7262 | Duncan | Baruch | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Planet Earth is the environment. The evidence that the current global heating and consequent disruptive weather is harming our environment is very strong. Enabling climate harming emissions by increasing the volume of the Rose Quarter Freeway makes no sense whatever. |
| 7263 | Emily | Meier | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions. The Portland Mercury wrote about this in 2018, and ODOT s study this summer supports this finding. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion, especially if other alternatives exist. While I don't live in a neighborhood adjacent to the proposed freeway expansion, I used to for many years, and I still work in one, and as such am affected by the increased air pollution and traffic. My workplace is industrial and directly adjacent to the UP railyard, so I and my co-workers are already exposed to toxic air both in and near our workplace that is not regulated by our corporate-profit-loving government. There is already a huge unaddressed problem of aggressive driving in an around this area. I have had countless near-misses as a commuting cyclist in the areas near various I-5 on/off-ramps in and around the Rose Quarter, including with deliberate physical and verbal death threats. We're already painfully aware of ODOT's callous disregard for the safety and lives of anyone outside a motor vehicle on all of it's many abandoned urban highways, such as Barbur, Powell and, until recently, 82nd. Endlessly, mindlessly increasing freeway capacity normalizes a culture of driving everywhere in single-occupancy vehicles all the time, and also normalizes a culture of violence against all other road users who are perceived to be in the way of drivers: public transit users, cyclists, pedestrians. Until we have zero traffic deaths and life-altering motorist-caused collisions on ODOT-controlled roads, ODOT should not be spending a single dime on freeway expansion. I own a motor vehicle, by the way, and drive it in Portland, but only extremely rarely, to haul things I can't haul by bike. I support congestion pricing, and do not want more freeways, or for any of the extant ones to be widened. It's one thing to be deeply concerned about the existential problem of climate change while occasionally and sparingly using fossil fuels by necessity, as I and many others do; it's quite another to be a taxpayer-funded government agency that aggressively induces more normalized demand for such, while un- or under-funding demand for any alternative, mind-numbingly repeating platitudes that Portland isn't anywhere near freeway capacity so induced demand isn't an issue here or whatever. I guess until we're at Los Angeles levels of toxic air pollution where the citizenry is warned not to exercise outside on a regular basis, gutted public transit/bike infrastructure, and traffic violence we should just keep filling up the city with freeways. While I support capping every single mile of extant urban freeway with public housing, freeway caps are not, in and of themselves, a compelling argument for the Rose Quarter I-5 freeway expansion project. There is already so little public trust in ODOT, regarded by most people I know as a horribly retrograde institution. The least ODOT could do at this point is conduct a full, and fully transparent to the public, EIS for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project. |
| 7264 | Kara | McCrossen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are experiencing global climate change. It s time to build the light rail over the Columbia, not adapt to move vehicles. |
| 7266 | Kara | McCrossen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The air is so dirty, a blanket of yellow and brown sits over the city. More freeways, is not the answer. |
| 7267 | Jordan W | Lewis | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT MUST provide a full Environmental Impact Statement if it wishes to maintain what little public trust remains in the local community. I moved to Portland specifically for the promise of a life where I wouldn't have to constantly make way for & accommodate cars. ODOT seems committed to moving forward with a disastrous lane expansion project, despite clear public opposition, and despite the evidence that more lanes don't solve traffic congestion. Portland seems intent on undermining its own reputation as a sustainable transportation leader! And for what? I understand the community's desire for a freeway cap and welcome one over the rose quarter section of I5 in the interest of community restoration. However, I cannot stomach the choice to stealthily bundle an I5 lane expansion in with the capping. This completely contradicts the proposed goal of the project! I5 cutting through neighborhoods WAS the problem! Freeways are blights on communities with clear historic health effects from particulate pollution to lead pollution to noise pollution to increased pedestrian deaths. It could not be more simple: DO NOT EXPAND I5 WITH THIS PROJECT. History will remember your choices. Do not tie your legacy to the cruel likes of Robert Moses. |
| 7268 | Naomi | Hemstreet | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT needs to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because ODOT needs to study other options to expanding the freeway. Expanding freeways have devastating effects on our environment and communities because they cause air pollution and divide communities. ODOT should add lids to the freeway, but not lanes. ODOT also needs to explore other options, such as congestion pricing, to reduce traffic, instead of adding more lanes (which we know doesn't work because of induced demand). Please conduct a full EIS. |
| 7269 | Sadie | Sack | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Increasing the size of freeways increases emissions in our communities. This damages the environment and the health of people who are our friends and neighbors. Conducting an Environmental Impact Statement would help us better understand the specific ways that this expansion will impact Portland. |
| 7270 | Rachel | Gilmore | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a parent of a 2-year old and I am terrified for his future. His generation has done nothing to contribute to climate change but will face the consequences of our inaction. You, as ODOT officials, hold a position of power and influence today to make the future brighter and less bleak. Please consider the children in your own lives and act with good conscience to promote the most climate-friendly investments. I am writing in support of capping the existing freeway in the Rose Quarter to reconnect the historic Albina neighborhood. ODOT's plan to cap the freeway is the right choice for repairing some of the racist harm that was done in the original freeway construction, which continues to perpetuate harm today. I am writing to demand that you conduct a full environmental impact statement of the project. Anything less is simply negligent. I am writing to urge moving forward with no additional lanes added to this segment of the freeway. Our region must rapidly implement congestion pricing to reduce emissions, save our climate, and protect the air that our children, including those attending Harriet Tubman Middle School, breath. The commitment that ODOT has demonstrated to"business as usual" is dangerous and has no place in Portland. When you have youth activists protesting your actions, you know that you are on the wrong side of history. As individuals employed by ODOT, please make your stance on the right side of the climate justice movement. Conduct a full EIS and do not add lanes to the freeway. Induced demand is well-researched and the lanes will not alleviate congestion. We all know this, and our community intends to hold you accountable. |
| 7271 | Hazel | Sanger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The I-5 is already a huge polluter. As an educator who has worked at Harriet Tubman middle school, I have seen first hand, and experienced myself, that they are being poisoned every day by the emissions from the freeway. These kids already have enough going on. They need to be protected, and expanding the thing poisoning them is not the way to do that. As a society, it s time to move away from freeways, and honestly, from cars. Let s invest in our public transport, and cap the freeway. Not expand it. Thank you. |
| 7272 | Jem | Sugnet | demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion |
| 7273 | Robin | Roemer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: *NO to failed trickle-down traffic engineering* With the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion ODOT doubles down on its failed path of trickle-down traffic engineering continuing to spend big on freeways that already are the most expensive part of the system. The less than two miles of freeway that will be affected by this project represent less than 0. 1% of the over 2000 miles of roads in the City of Portland (source: https://www. oregon. gov/odot/Data/Documents/OMR_2017. pdf) yet this section alone would receive almost three times as much money as annual budget for the whole Bureau of Transportation of the City of Portland (https://www. portland. gov/sites/default/files/2021/pbot-fy-2021-22-requested-budget_final. pdf). ODOT is falsely hoping that minimal changes on its freeway will trickle-down to improve the overall system, instead of focusing its resources on smaller, actually cost-effective measures such as safety improvements to its orphan urban highways. Trickle-down traffic engineering has never worked, never will. *NO to traffic modelling companies that are biased towards highway expansions*Traffic modelling companies such as the ones used by ODOT for the EIS make most of their money from highway building DOTs. They have a vested interested in telling DOTs what they want to hear. DOT widening a highway based on traffic modelling is like the Pentagon asking for bigger defense budgets based on studies by Lockheed Martin. Traffic modelling companies (or ODOT for that matter) typically assume no professional responsibility or legal liability for the accuracy of their projections leaving society and us all with the impacts and costs of their mistakes. Until there is independent regulation and oversight over traffic modelling companies, their software and their accuracy in projecting future traffic, their outputs should be discarded as biased. This is especially egregious since the SEIS fails to transparently disclose to the general public relevant, major assumptions as well as modelling results such as: # of trips for each alternative; hourly distribution of trips and hourly traffic volumes; capacity of roadways, intersections and ramps; impact to VMT; impact to VHT; impacts to I-5 mainline (typically improved access to a freeway increases number of vehicles on the freeway and with that increases congestion). *No to highway projects that don t support economic growth* ODOT states The [ ] Build Alternative would not substantially improve highway capacity and is not expected to induce growth . (Page 34, I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Supplemental Environmental Assessment). In other words, all the improvements ODOT proposes, and all the public money spent by ODOT will not encourage any private economic activity that wouldn t happen anyway. No logistic company will buy additional trucks or hire more drivers because of the improvement , no developer will build more housing, consumers won t go out more to Portland s restaurants, bars or shops to spend their evening and their money because traffic has improved . ODOT summarizes this zero impact to private economic activity as follow Latent demand occurs when a lower perceived cost of driving (in time/convenience or money) results in people choosing to drive more often, drive farther, or choose driving over another mode [ ] Outside of the API, model results does not indicate a substantial difference in traffic volumes between the No-Build and Revised Build Alternatives in 2045, demonstrating the project would not result in [manifestation of] latent demand. (page 104f). This is outrageous. Especially, given that - according to ODOTs own estimates - delays on I-5 alone, costs the economy of the Portland Metro Region over a $120 million a year. (source: https://www. oregon. gov/odot/Projects/ProjectDocuments/TPR-2020. pdf, p. 9). Shouldn t ODOT focus on projects that reduce these costs to the economy and society and that unlock additional economic activity? The comparison to transit project is helpful: Imagine TriMet proposing to spend 1. 5 billion dollars to improve transit but when asked about how this will affect ridership (latent demand), TriMet were to respond that the 1. 5 billion dollars will not improve ridership numbers AT ALL. Some riders might switch from one route to another but overall, there would be no substantial difference in [ridership] numbers between the No-Build and Revised Build Alternatives in 2045. TriMet would be laughed out of the room; and ODOT should be too. Lets consider alternatives that encourage growth. PS: The SEIS statement above about no induced demand is inconsistent in its argumentation about induced growth as in another section as the SEIS states on page ES-5: If the Project is not constructed, the City of Portland would be unable to implement some aspects of the land use components of the Adopted Central City 2035 Plan or PedPDX, as adopted. Some planned re-zonings to allow higher levels of employment or population density would not be allowed, which would limit allowed development within the Lower Albina and Lloyd planning districts [ ] . As the SEIS explains on page 104: Induced demand occurs when a road project results in increased use of the transportation network due to unplanned changes to land use. According to the statement on page ES-5 and using the definition on page 104, the no-build alternative would unexpectedly limit/change land uses and with that result in "negative induced demand", ie. reduce vehicle traffic. |
| 7274 | David | Kirchmeir | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello ODOT, I would ask that an environmental impact statement for the Rose Quarter freeway expansion but what's the point? Why do more 'study' when all one has to do is look to every single freeway expansion - wider freeways mean more cars and more congestion. This is a known fact, the most egregious example being the clogged freeways and fractured neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Last summer Portland and Oregon record high temperatures. Why go through the motions of an environmental impact statement when we know that cars are one of the most significant contributors to the climate crisis? We don't need more study, we need to stop building automobile infrastructure and instead make mass transit and cycling viable options. The corporate interests that are pressuring ODOT won't be able to do business when our home become unlivable owing to the climate crisis. How hot does it have to get? 120 degrees? 130? I'm confident that ODOT in all its arrogance will expand the freeway. Please know that when I vote I will remember the preposterous charade of 'impact statements' that everyone knows are meaningless. Thank you for reading this, David Kirchmeir |
| 7275 | Janet | Weil | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I do not want the Rose Quarter, nor Portland as a whole, to suffer from any more air pollution from a wider freeway! How many times do we have to say this?? |
| 7276 | Alan | De Anda-Hall | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I emphatically support the proposed freeway caps over I-5 included in Hybrid 3. I am grateful for the continued advocacy from Albina Vision Trust and the wisdom of the Historic Albina Advisory Board to heal the neighborhood previously torn apart by ODOT freeway construction sixty years ago. No More Freeways' strong supporters continued investment in the Albina neighborhood including the freeway lids, affordable housing and safer streets without also adding additional cars and air pollution into the neighborhood brought about by the significant freeway expansion below the surface level streets. ODOT likes to talk a big game about their commitment to restorative justice, but their proposal to fix the injustices of their previous freeway construction shouldn t come with strings or lanes attached. We believe the Hybrid 3 proposal should be funded and decoupled from ODOT s original proposal to add 1. 8 miles lanes of polluting freeway. As No More Freeways has demanded in countless letters and testimony since 2017, ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions (The Portland Mercury wrote about this in 2018, and ODOT s study this summer supports this finding). ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. ODOT has a terrible record with accountability and transparency to the public with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Below is an incomplete list of instances in which ODOT has withheld crucial information or demonstrably mislead the public. In the original Environmental Assessment, ODOT didn t even provide the full traffic projection numbers on which the agency based all of their claims of congestion reduction, improved air quality or lowered carbon emissions. No More Freeways sent numerous letters demanding this information, and what the agency ultimately provided with only a week for us to review before the closure of the public comment period was laughably incomplete. ODOT s traffic projections also hid the proposed Columbia River Crossing into their assumptions to artificially inflate the need for additional lanes of freeway through the Rose Quarter. ODOT hired air quality experts to review the impacts that the freeway would have on nearby air pollution, but refused to give the experts the opportunity to review the corrupted traffic data on which any review of air pollution would necessitate. Their claims that this proposed freeway expansion would improve air quality are impossible to verify without providing the public this traffic data, and the agency continues to withhold this information. Despite repeated questions by community leaders and public testimony for numerous elected bodies, ODOT continued to hide from the public basic details about the proposal, most notably refusing to confirm the width of the proposed expansion. No More Freeways uncovered evidence that ODOT was planning a freeway wide enough for twelve lanes through numerous public records requests in 2021, many of which ODOT attempted to delay or refuse to provide information. When confronted with this question, ODOT s officials claimed in a public meeting that the additional width was part of a collaboration with the local transit agency for bus-only lanes, a claim that TriMet immediately refuted. ODOT has continued to lie to the public about the costs of this project. In 2017, ODOT told the Oregon Legislature the project would cost $450 million. In 2019, ODOT admitted the cost could be as high as $795 million. Last year, ODOT revealed that the project s total cost could be as much as $1. 45 billion. The huge expense of the project comes from the very wide roadway that ODOT is planning as much as 160 feet wide enough for a 10 or 12 lane roadway. The very wide roadway makes the caps more complex and expensive. Capping the existing freeway would be far cheaper and have much lower environmental costs, but ODOT refuses to study this alternative. ODOT hid from Portland Public Schools and the public at large their plans to take land into the literal backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. No More Freeways only uncovered this fact after numerous public records requests. PPS staff were unaware of ODOT s plans. ODOT claims that this proposed freeway expansion is a safety investment yet there hasn t been a traffic fatality on this stretch of freeway in over a decade. Meanwhile, ODOT owns numerous arterials across the region (including TV Highway, Barbur Boulevard, Powell Boulevard, McLoughlin among them) that are among the most dangerous roads in the state. The Street Trust s Sarah Iannarone wrote in The Oregonian this November highlighting the need to use tolling policy to invest in safety improvements instead of more lanes of freeway, and Oregon Families for Safe Street s Michelle DuBarry shared her story of personal loss in an op-ed in the Oregonian in March 2020. ODOT hid from the public their plan to widen the freeway over the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade this was only made public through No More Freeways public records research. The agency has talked a big game about the investments they would make on the caps, but as Joe Cortright at City Observatory reports, ODOT s actual plans for what they intend to support and invest in is significantly different than what the agency shares in glossy mailers. Most recently, a Circuit Court Judge in Marion County found ODOT guilty of breaking the most basic public records laws. The agency was caught red-headed manufacturing fake records to share with the public instead of providing the documents requested, and ODOT s doctored documents attempted to downplay the significant community opposition that spoke up against the project in 2019. Metro s letter to ODOT during the March 2019 public comment period called ODOT s claims that this project wasn t a freeway expansion not objectively true and potentially misleading. |
| 7277 | Nicolas | Cota | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are numerous reasons to think twice about this project. I'm here to mostly voice that widening I-5 here will only lead to more cars that get stuck in traffic. However, I immensely support the building of lids over this freeway to reconnect a historically black neighborhood and revise connection points to provide safe, accessible, and healthy alternatives to moving through the neighborhood. It shouldn't come at the cost of more lanes and more pollution. |
| 7278 | Pat | Kaczmarek | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland, Oregon, and the world are facing an extreme threat due to Climate Change driven by our use of fossil fuels. Instead of investing in more motorized transportation expansion, our city and state need to focus on curbing fossil fuel emissions, educating the public about the threat and taking leadership to encourage citizens to conserve energy. We do not need to focus on capping freeways with more concrete. The concrete industry is responsible for about 8%of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. We do not need to expand freeways with more concrete. An Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion and any other transportation infrastructure expansion must be mandatory. What we need are detailed, well thought out plans for reducing energy use, scaling back infrastructure and focusing on very low-energy-use methods of transportation. Right now, Portland area busses are running with very low occupancy. Automobiles need to become a last-choice option for transportation. We need higher costs and tolls for private vehicles, a phase-out of combustion engine vehicles and support for electric busses, bikes and pedestrian walkways. Please step-up leadership towards a livable future. We are headed in the wrong direction by continuing to support further increases in energy use - particularly those derived from fossil fuels. Thank you, |
| 7279 | Jonathan | Greenwood | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello, I am writing in support of No More Freeways. The proposed Hybrid 3 caps over the freeway provide a path forward for the Albina community to heal from ODOT s freeway construction in the neighborhood sixty years ago. I support building these community lids and decoupling this initiative from ODOT s additional lanes of freeway. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions (The Portland Mercury wrote about this in 2018, and ODOT s study this summer supports this finding). ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. ODOT has a terrible record with accountability and transparency to the public with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Below is an incomplete list of instances in which ODOT has withheld crucial information or demonstrably mislead the public. In the original Environmental Assessment, ODOT didn t even provide the full traffic projection numbers on which the agency based all of their claims of congestion reduction, improved air quality or lowered carbon emissions. No More Freeways sent numerous letters demanding this information, and what the agency ultimately provided with only a week for us to review before the closure of the public comment period was laughably incomplete. ODOT s traffic projections also hid the proposed Columbia River Crossing into their assumptions to artificially inflate the need for additional lanes of freeway through the Rose Quarter. ODOT hired air quality experts to review the impacts that the freeway would have on nearby air pollution, but refused to give the experts the opportunity to review the corrupted traffic data on which any review of air pollution would necessitate. Their claims that this proposed freeway expansion would improve air quality are impossible to verify without providing the public this traffic data, and the agency continues to withhold this information. Despite repeated questions by community leaders and public testimony for numerous elected bodies, ODOT continued to hide from the public basic details about the proposal, most notably refusing to confirm the width of the proposed expansion. No More Freeways uncovered evidence that ODOT was planning a freeway wide enough for twelve lanes through numerous public records requests in 2021, many of which ODOT attempted to delay or refuse to provide information. When confronted with this question, ODOT s officials claimed in a public meeting that the additional width was part of a collaboration with the local transit agency for bus-only lanes, a claim that TriMet immediately refuted. ODOT has continued to lie to the public about the costs of this project. In 2017, ODOT told the Oregon Legislature the project would cost $450 million. In 2019, ODOT admitted the cost could be as high as $795 million. Last year, ODOT revealed that the project s total cost could be as much as $1. 45 billion. The huge expense of the project comes from the very wide roadway that ODOT is planning as much as 160 feet wide enough for a 10 or 12 lane roadway. The very wide roadway makes the caps more complex and expensive. Capping the existing freeway would be far cheaper and have much lower environmental costs, but ODOT refuses to study this alternative. ODOT hid from Portland Public Schools and the public at large their plans to take land into the literal backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. No More Freeways only uncovered this fact after numerous public records requests. PPS staff were unaware of ODOT s plans. ODOT claims that this proposed freeway expansion is a safety investment yet there hasn t been a traffic fatality on this stretch of freeway in over a decade. Meanwhile, ODOT owns numerous arterials across the region (including TV Highway, Barbur Boulevard, Powell Boulevard, McLoughlin among them) that are among the most dangerous roads in the state. The Street Trust s Sarah Iannarone wrote in The Oregonian this November highlighting the need to use tolling policy to invest in safety improvements instead of more lanes of freeway, and Oregon Families for Safe Street s Michelle DuBarry shared her story of personal loss in an op-ed in the Oregonian in March 2020. ODOT hid from the public their plan to widen the freeway over the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade this was only made public through No More Freeways public records research. The agency has talked a big game about the investments they would make on the caps, but as Joe Cortright at City Observatory reports, ODOT s actual plans for what they intend to support and invest in is significantly different than what the agency shares in glossy mailers. Most recently, a Circuit Court Judge in Marion County found ODOT guilty of breaking the most basic public records laws. The agency was caught red-handed manufacturing fake records to share with the public instead of providing the documents requested, and ODOT s doctored documents attempted to downplay the significant community opposition that spoke up against the project in 2019. Metro s letter to ODOT during the March 2019 public comment period called ODOT s claims that this project wasn t a freeway expansion not objectively true and potentially misleading. Thank you, Jonathan Greenwood |
| 7280 | Hazel | Light | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a worker who often has to transit through amd work in the Rose Quarter. Not only will construction make air quality worse, but the freeway widening will permanently decrease air quality, leading to a higher risk of lung disease for everyone working in the area. |
| 7281 | Kristen | Sartor | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Its really important that we put the caps on 1-5, but we do not need to expand the freeway in order to do this. Expanding the freeway is just going to increase air pollution and further the climate catastrophe, which is literally destroying the one and only Earth we have to live in. It also isn't a solution- it may resolve traffic issues for a few years, but because of induced demand, we're just going to be in the same situation a few years down the road. Instead, we should be investing our money into transit, bike infrastructure, and pedestrian infrastructure so people aren't forced to rely on individual vehicles. Conducting a full EIS is the least that you can do-at least be honest and transparent about what's happening rather than trying to bulldoze this through. I personally struggle to trust ODOT and their decisions as so far they have a terrible record with accountability and transparency to the public with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project. Thank you for your time! |
| 7282 | Harriet | Shaklee | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT needs to conduct a full environmental impact study for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion to fully consider alternatives to increasing the pollution associated with increased traffic to this critical area of Portland. Additional lanes may reduce congestion in the short run but congestion will resume as additional traffic is drawn to the area. The Albina community has proposed a freeway cap that could restore this community that was divided by the freeway so many years ago. This plan would use our highway funds to build community, rather than fracturing it. Thank you. Harriet Shaklee |
| 7283 | Anna | Kahler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It would be incredibly irresponsible and inconsiderate to not do an EIS for the rose quarter freeway expansion. There are homes, schools, places of work, etc. directly surrounding where the expansion could take place. Before any expansion occurs we have to know how the proposed changes would impact the health of our communities. Portland already has some of the worst air quality in the country. We cannot put our communities health at risk for a bad infrastructure project. |
| 7284 | Garlynn | Woodsong | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm not at all convinced that the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is needed. I believe that with congestion pricing, the existing facility could operate adequately. Further, removal of I-5 from the East Bank of the Willamette River, and de-commissioning of the Marquam Bridge, must be studied as an alternative to this freeway widening project, to determine which project might do more to reduce GHGs in response to our climate crisis. |
| 7285 | Cooper | Frantz-Geddes | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: An EIS needs to be conducted so the public will know the impact that a freeway expansion could havw, especially on the students and faculty of Harriet Tubman Middle School. ODOT should be prioritizing freeway lids and congestion pricing, not inducing more traffic by expanding the freeway. |
| 7286 | Tri | Sanger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Having taught students from Tubman middle school, I see how horribly they are already being impacted by environmental racism. They are being poisoned every day, both the students and the school staff. We cannot continue to ignore that the world is burning down around us. I write this now under a stagnation zone warning. There aren t even fires close by, and the air still smells of smoke. Wake up! Fight climate change, stop causing it! Stop poisoning our communities and our kids! |
| 7287 | Nancy | Harrison | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The City of Portland and ODOT have a long history of siting environmentally hazardous operations in minority and disadvantaged communities. The current plans for the I-5 freeway expansion have had little review to determine exactly how badly they will degrade the local air/water quality, as well as the long term environmental impact of allowing, in fact encouraging, considerably more fossil-fueled traffic to use the highway. We need to get the facts about this project before any more work is done on it. |
| 7288 | Kimberly | Pendell | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This project should not start until a full environmental impact statement has been conducted. We are heading to a future of constant air pollution, fires, and lower quality of life -- and cars are driving us there. I live in Eliot, and currently have zero confidence that ODOT has done anything to address these concerns. I am also highly skeptical about increased safety of the plans so far, especially for folks walking and on bikes. The Rose Quarter area is already dangerous enough! |
| 7289 | Cory | Mack | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must complete an environmental impact statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion to meet NEPA guidelines. They should also listen to the demands of Portlanders who believe that this project will create more pollution and congestion while making alternative transportation like cycling, walking or public transit less viable and more dangerous. I, like many Portlanders, demand a transportation system that reduces the volume of cars on our streets and facilitates safe, viable options for other means of transportation. |
| 7290 | Dan | Ryan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We want lids not an expansion. ODOT needs to conduct an accurate EIS for the freeway expansion. It is an absolute embarrassment that we are trying to expand a highway that tore apart a historically black neighborhood. There is not one highway expansion that has ever improved traffic. We need to look into alternatives to highway expansion, such as congestion pricing to fund public safety projects, and make our streets safer and more equitable. Highways do not allow for the city to get income from that land, so they make the city poorer, while making the air quality and the noise pollution worse. |
| 7291 | Reed | Harrison | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm concerned about the health of my NE Portland community, both in terms of increased emissions hurting the air quality and in the higher volumes and speeds of traffic through this part of the city. |
| 7292 | Alex | Parise | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: After living in Denver, Colorado for many years and seeing firsthand -- thanks to the eternal I-25 expansions -- that adding lanes doesn't do a single thing to reduce congestion, I fully and firmly stand opposed to any plans to expand I-5 through Portland. |
| 7293 | Tracey | Egan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are desperate for more and wider freeways. The Rose Quarter section of I5 is seriously past due for upgrades to handle the additional traffic. The widening and additional lanes should reduce congestion and be a plus for the environment as cars will be able to flow instead of idle. As a 30 year resident of Portland metro, this can't happen soon enough. |
| 7294 | ZT | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am writing today to demand the ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion by providing specific language detailing how the agency will only support a project that reduces carbon emissions and vehicle miles traveled. I demand the ODOT consider a climate-smart alternative to the freeway expansion. As the effects of climate change continue to become increasingly apparent, the last thing our world needs is another freeway expansion which will only add to the overall heating effects created by flat asphalt surfaces and hurt the most vulnerable of our communities. Likewise, the cost of widening the freeway could be better spent on improving local public transit infrastructure as case after case has shown widening roadways does nothing to alleviate traffic congestion while adding to air pollutants and noise. The science used to support freeway expansions is inaccurate and outdated and should be reevaluated. Portland has seen a record high of vehicular violence in the last year. The best thing ODOT do is put funding into the community via public transit and safer bike and pedestrian pathways, not increasing car traffic. | |
| 7295 | Rachel | Adler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please don't create new freeway infrastructure. We need to prioritize pedestrians, the environment and the neighborhood before we invest in cars. The people who live here don't want this. |
| 7296 | Diana | Richardson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It ought to go without saying or explanation! But to be clear, ANY infrastructure plan or change MUST do an EIS. This is not limited to the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, but must certainly start there. ! |
| 7297 | Amy | Murray | demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion |
| 7298 | Marilyn | Costamagna | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Build Lids not Lanes! Approve a full EIS the studies alternatives to expansion. More freeways mean more air pollution, which as the potential to exacerbate the climate crisis . People movers are needed in the form of things like solar or battery powered public transportation rail systems and not freeways which promote the continued use of a system which transports very few people per vehicle that is dependent on fossil fuel to power the car. Land should not be covered by more and more unnecessary concrete. What happens when all the land and its ecosystems are gone? |
| 7299 | Misty | Earisman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We KNOW adding lanes will ADD congestion to our highways in the long term! Our communities and our planet at large cannot withstand assaults like this anymore. We need to be capping freeways and conducting fuly transparent EIS reports so that taxpayers can know what their hard earned money is funding. Also, ODOTs track record is too terrible to trust them with this important project. |
| 7300 | Kathryn | Sundermann | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Those of us who live here and breathe the air deserve to be protected from the pollution and disruption of the proposed freeway expansion. I want bike lanes and light rail, not more cars and trucks. |
| 7301 | Mariana | Lindsay | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: My 4-year-old kid just got diagnosed with asthma, we live blocks from I-5 right where you are planning to expand. I beat myself up for moving here, back to my childhood neighborhood, so that my kid could be raised by his family. Maybe it was my fault for raising him near a freeway, but also how do I get him away from a society that cares more about cars than breathing? Please please please, stop making more room for cars, our kids literally can't breathe. It's not worth it, they are worth more than this. |
| 7302 | Chris | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There needs to be a full Environmental Impact Statement to address the environmental impact. Also, why not enclose the widened freeway, allowing for greenspace and development above. The current project seems analogous to building an subway without closing the top of the tunnel. We can do better than the current plan. | |
| 7303 | David | Regan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: More traffic lanes mean more pollution and roadway congestion, it's time to price the use of roads to time of day. |
| 7304 | Michael | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I want my kids to be able to survive | |
| 7305 | Richard | Bayer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Because widening the freeway will create more traffic and more pollution. Those of us living in Portland don't want more pollution. Thank you. |
| 7306 | Megan | Person | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Quality of living! In a moment when every year brings the hottest temperatures on record, every dime of public money spent on fossil fuel infrastructure further subsidizes the suffering we all experience under the impacts of climate destabilization. |
| 7307 | Michael | Wolfe | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a lifelong Portlander and father of 2 young children, I ask ODOT to conduct a full EIS on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway expansion. This is a harmful, misguided project and it must not be allowed to be railroaded through without all necessary scrutiny. The project represents an investment of over a billion dollars, and whose lifespan should be measured in decades. If, in decades, we need the freeway capacity that this project would add then we will have woefully fallen short of climate goals that we *must* meet. If we *don't* need the capacity, then we've wasted a billion dollars that could be better spent on climate friendly transportation solutions. This project is a billion dollar bet *against* our survival as a civilization. |
| 7308 | Matt | Tuckerbaum | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There is no doubt in my mind that the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion will increase the environmental impact of I-5 in Portland. In the immediate vicinity, air quality will be even worse than it already is. At the city and state level, the additional lanes will induce more demand for driving and increase our overall carbon emissions. ODOT must conduct another EIS so that Oregonians know exactly what the health and climate costs of this project would be. |
| 7309 | Emmett | Copeland | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It s time to find other transportation solutions. |
| 7310 | Kristin | Gross | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It has become incredibly clear that climate change is happening at a rapid pace. We cannot continue to create more space to encourage private vehicle use that very obviously contributes to not only climate change, put bad health outcomes for those who live near freeways. It's also been shown many times that widening a freeway doesn't reduce congestion, it only brings in more vehicle traffic. We need an EIS to show the true costs of widening I-5 at the Rose Quarter and how alternatives like congestion pricing could be a better option. |
| 7311 | Rob | Neyer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Having studied the history of freeway construction, expansion, and (occasional) deconstruction in the United States, one thing becomes exceedingly clear: the majority of construction and expansion is ultimately seen as short-sighted, and deconstruction is both admired and envied. We cannot build our way out of the many issues created by freeways slicing through our cities. |
| 7312 | Andrea | Post | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I want to know exactly what the environmental impact of this project will be compared to alternatives. If the neighborhood asked for lids, why aren't they included? Why is ODOT considering making N. Williams even more dangerous for bikes and pedestrians? Where is the transparency around this project? Why are we widening highways in neighborhoods already suffering social and environmental harm from the existing highway? When our climate is going to be more like Sacramento than Seattle thanks to climate change, why are we still building highways and not bike routes? We need our infrastructure to reflect our values. We don't value further harm to Albina, and we don't value pollution. Please consider alternatives. |
| 7313 | Phil | Moll | I demand ODOT conduct and Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, so that the environmental impact is properly assessed. I support lids on the I-5 freeway, rather than expanding capacity. |
| 7314 | Scott | Hillson | More freeway lanes are bad for our city, bad for our health, and it's not the path to a healthy and equitable future. |
| 7315 | Allyse | Heartwell | The Rose Quarter & Albina areas deserve a freeway oriented rethink: but they need *less* freeway, not more. Freeway expansions are bad for public health in the immediate area, in direct conflict with Portland's climate goals, and an ineffective boondoggle to boot. We need to cover the freeway and reclaim the space, yes, but *without* adding lanes. The current plan demands an EIS at the very least. ODOT has proved time and again that they're not trustworthy partners acting in good faith. Their goals and priorities are not Portland's goals and priorities. |
| 7316 | Walt | Hollands | There will clearly be an environmental impact from adding lanes and therefore many more cars to I-5. How big will that impact be? Is it worth it? We need an EIS to find out! |
| 7317 | Cale | Bickler | I want less cars, more freeway lanes means more cars. Stop adding lanes now. |
| 7318 | Diane | Jonesy | Expanding the interstate in this area will do more harm, create more noise and pollution and make these neighborhoods even harder to live in and get around by foot, car, and bicycle. My husband teaches at PCC and is in the NE Williams neighborhoods often. Our friends live off of NE Williams in the same area. I hate driving or walking and biking in the area as it already feels overly inundated. Please ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement as should have already been done, and please consider lids to help protect Portland's central core. I lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood for over 15 years and the same problems exist there, the noise in the neighborhood is such that you can't talk outside, and the pollution is real. Caps on freeways like other cities have done would provide a much more pleasant urban experience where businesses and people thrive. |
| 7319 | Jeffrey | Ramsey | I have lived in the Eliot neighborhood for 12 years, my wife has run a small business a short distance from I-5 on Williams Ave. for 10 of those years. Our daughter will be headed to Harriet Tubman Middle School in just a few years. This project has the opportunity to correct a history of displacement and disconnection in this neighborhood, reconnecting our community through the caps proposed in the hybrid 3 plan. This would add green space to cool one of the hottest areas of the city, as well as add opportunities for housing and local businesses. All of which is not contingent on adding lanes to the freeway beneath, which I and so many in my community oppose. I ask that a full Environmental Impact Assessment be conducting, which considers alternatives which will create a healthier and safer Albina, not a louder and more polluted one. Finally, I ask that this agency be more transparent on this publicly funded project which will impact tens of thousands of residents in its path. Rather than an attitude of trust us I ask that your agency share plans and projections on everything from traffic and congestion estimates to the design of the bridge across the Columbia. Without openness, I have no choice but to distrust your motives, which seem to be to ram this project through with more lanes no matter what the public thinks. Please prove me wrong! |
| 7320 | Alice | Corbin | Why in the name of all that is holy would they not conduct an EIS? Are they afraid of what the results would be? And that the only way to stuff this freeway expansion down the public's throat is to hide or ignore the effect that it would have on the neighborhood? |
| 7321 | Douglas | Ollerenshaw | I currently live in Seattle but I spent many great years living in Portland and still visit frequently. I am disappointed to hear that there are plans to widen I-5 through the Rose Quarter. Portland should continue to be a model for environmentally responsible transportation policies and a wider freeway does not accomplish that goal. I hope that ODOT will perform a full environmental impact study to fully quantify the impacts - on human health, on safety, on the environment - that a widened freeway would bring. I would urge ODOT to move forward with plans to cap the freeway without expanding capacity. Portland deserves better than a traffic-filled gash through its core. ODOT should put the needs of people that live in the city first. Don't make Portland an easier place to pass through. Please make it a better place to live and to visit. |
| 7322 | Ted | Sarvata | Climate leaders don t widen freeways. We don t have many years left to slow climate change enough so humanity can survive. Widening freeways, as you know, induces more demand, meaning more people driving, and more emissions. Study it. You ll see. Be climate leaders. |
| 7323 | Courtney | Campbell | We need to be considering expansion of public transit and other safer and environmentally friendly options. For the sake of our people and our planet, other steps need to be taken beyond existing harmful car culture. |
| 7324 | Andre | Jaurigui | We do not need to be expanding freeways but instead providing better options for public transportation. This city has the potential to have efficient and effective means of public transportation that would not only benefit the environment with the ongoing climate crisis, but also residents of Portland as they save money on not using automobiles. I urge you to listen to the messages of the public and take the current climate crisis into consideration. |
| 7325 | Eudaemone | Battilega | Odot has not been clear or transparent about this process and the impact of freeway expansions have NEVER helped ease congestion in the long run. If you are in doubt please look into the principle of induced demand. And surely, in this day,, when we are all concerned (or should be) about the very real consequences of climate change, furthering single car freeway travel is NOT the best solution. The best possible solution would be to create a lid and make Portland better for trains, busses, the max, and bikes. The only thing we absolutely DO NOT WANT is yet more cars and trucks. My husband bikes through this area for work. I just gave up my car for an electric bike. The thought of navigating this area makes this junction even more frightening. |
| 7326 | Brandon | Goff | The data is clear, widening freeways leads to more vehicle miles traveled. As cities across the country are removing downtown freeways in favor of walkable spaces and public transit, "progressive" Oregon is jamming yet another lane through an already divided neighborhood. I regularly ride my bicycle through this neighborhood, the last thing it needs is more vehicles driving through it. Cap it and call it good, a billion dollars for another mile of freeway lane is an insane cost with no discernable benefit, but the caps could help mitigate the harm that was done when this freeway was built. |
| 7327 | Evan | Ward | The purpose of this project is to increase the vehicle capacity of the roadway. If there is no way to prevent any driver who wants from entering a roadway, and drivers can use that roadway to get somewhere they want to go, then that increased roadway capacity will be used. If this project fulfills its stated purpose, it will significantly increase the number of cars traveling through the Rose Quarter and surrounding residential neighborhoods. ODOT should prepare an environmental impact statement to analyze the possible environmental impact, and revise the project to reduce the impact if necessary. As it stands, this project will borrow money from my children to build a road to save time for freight and freeway commuters, and hurt the health and safety of Portlanders living in and near the Rose Quarter to do it. That is, this project will take from the neighborhood where it will be built, for the benefit of people who live far away. That isn't right. |
| 7328 | Dana | Keeler | Less than two years after Portland hit an all-time record high of 114 degrees Fahrenheit, ODOT wants to spend money encouraging more driving. This is beyond irresponsible. Our environment is in danger, and we need to make decisions and take actions to reduce our impact on the environment. Furthermore, by looking at freeway widening projects in other locations, we already know that adding lanes does not solve the problem of congestion. We need to invest in public transportation, not private transportation. ODOT must conduct an Environmental Impact Statement before this project goes further. |
| 7329 | Dylan | It's such a shame that these projects so often disregard the very people it most directly effects the people who live there. The biking and walking through the Rose quarter area is already very dangerous and disjointed, primarily thanks to the on and offramp chaos on both sides of Broadway. Please reconsider this project and do what's right for the people who live here expanding the freeways hurts our community. We should be bringing this community together, not driving a bigger, car-shaped wedge through it. Thanks | |
| 7330 | Steve | Cheseborough | An urban freeway expansion is the opposite of what we should be doing now. Maybe an EIS will help ODOT come to its senses and cancel the expansion. Putting lids over the existing freeway, and turning them into spaces for rest and culture, is a fine idea, though! Thank you. |
| 7331 | Priscilla | Carlson | This is an important part of proceeding with any large project involving roads and freeways. It must happen. |
| 7332 | George | I can't breathe. | |
| 7333 | Peter | Laciano | I am writing to express my strong disappointment and disapproval with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project as currently designed. Building a cover/lid over the existing highway and taking other measures to reconnect communities is critical and long overdue, but in the current plan ODOT is using these measures as cover for a major lane expansion project that will cost taxpayers millions, further exacerbates the climate crisis and air pollution, increase car volumes putting other road users at risk, and continue the shameful practice of highway building/expansion through vulnerable communities. Though I own a car, I dominantly walk, bike, and take traffic to get around the city of Portland. The increasing volume of cars on our roads is a threat to my own safety and has spurred some of my peers to reduce bike trips out of fear. I frequently bike from the inner SE to the Mississippi corridor, which takes me along streets that would see increased car traffic spilling out of a freeway with more lanes. This is unacceptable given the already obscene rates of injury and death experienced cyclists and pedestrians in this city. ODOT needs to complete a full Environmental Impact Statement and perform an honest, comprehensive analysis of alternative plans that address the climate crisis (which requires a reduction in VMT), road safety for all users, air pollution, and using taxpayer funds wisely. Other measures such as tolling should be prioritized first that can both reduce traffic, air pollution, carbon emissions, and increase safety to vulnerable road users. |
| 7334 | David | Farmer | I am concerned about the people breathing the exhaust. Please don't build unaffordable caps. More lanes should be the priority. More lanes make less congestion and less pollution. More freight should go to Rail. |
| 7335 | Peter | Kokopeli | I am writing concerning the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I urge ODOT to conduct a complete Environmental Impact Statement. The project should examine all options to adding lanes including lidding the current corridor, toll lanes and other transportation options. Every effort should be made to maximize improvement to the local neighborhood by restoring street connections across the freeway. Lastly, ODOT must conduct the planning process in an open and forthright manner with the people of Oregon. |
| 7336 | Dr. Adrienne | Schroeder | I thought we were supposed to be a walkable city. I thought we cared about kids, neighbors, and a sustainable future. Adding more freeways into a neighborhood that has already been destroyed by urban development seems like an extremely short-sighted and terrible idea. Please do an INDEPENDENT review and actually LOOK at the results please. |
| 7337 | Nancy Betty | Baumeister | More lanes always means more car trips and that s bad for The neighborhood, Portland and the climate. Don t add lanes! |
| 7338 | Lisa | Caballero | ODOT should be required to conduct an EIS because it will force them to consider options like congestion pricing. Freeway expansion can t be justified. We need to be transitioning away from automobiles (both combustion and electric) and toward sustainable modes of travel. |
| 7339 | Hannah | Theisen | I can t believe ODOT is taking the easy way out approach to addressing traffic congestion through Portland. Every time I fly over Los Angeles, be it at 10 in the evening or 10 in the morning, the absolute hellscape of gridlock makes me shudder, and THAT is 7 lanes going each way! This proposal flies in the face of the very value statement of ODOT: Equity: We embrace diversity and foster a culture of inclusion. I don t see how tearing up a historic neighborhood embraces the diversity of the Portland Community, and your integrity (Integrity: We are accountable and transparent with public funds and hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. ) has been lacking as well. I m adding my voice as a cyclist AND a user of ODOT roads to say, this plan is a waste of funds, does not lead the way in future thinking or creative solutions, and will not solve the crisis of tear through neighborhood commuters, it will just move them elsewhere. Please conduct a thorough Environmental Impact Study and make a better informed decision from those results. Your passion for community connection is severely lacking in this plan. |
| 7340 | Scott | Duncombe | As a resident of N/NE Portland - my family is downwind of the I-5 corridor. More lanes means more traffic which means more particulate, which research has found leads to premature death. |
| 7341 | Stephen | Riddle | An ODOT EIS is necessary to show the public that this proposed expansion will exacerbate the environmental problems such an expansion will cause. Expansion of the freeway here will only increase global warming in the area by increasing the Co2 released in the air . In addition such an expansion will not allow the Albina area of the city to rebuild the neighborhood destroyed by previous freeway development. This is an environmentally dangerous plan. |
| 7342 | Damian | Hinman | I demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. |
| 7343 | Peter | Wilcox | The Rose Quarter Freeway expansion is a major climate catastrophe. Any project with this much impact on Portlander's lives and futures must conduct an EIS. And, buildable lids to reconnect the Albina neighborhoods and allow more house were promised and MUST be built! |
| 7344 | Kyle | Wells | I broadly support the idea of capping this freeway, but given the fact that it already has negative impacts on the air quality of surrounding neighborhoods, it is imperative that we have the fullest possible understanding of the environmental impacts that this freeway expansion would have. My understanding is that consultants ODOT hired estimate that introducing tolling would likely cause the desired congestion reduction, and it seems massively more cost effective to just introduce tolling and then spend the money currently allocated for freeway expansion on the many ODOT-managed properties in the city of Portland that actually have a high volume of traffic deaths, like Powell. |
| 7345 | John | Carr | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I recently attended a public meeting to learn about the status of the Rose Quarter project. The team from ODOT spent the entirety of their presentation talking about restorative justice and what the mending of past harms would mean for the Albina neighborhood and community. I agree with these aims and goals. But when asked about whether there were other (less expensive, less harmful to air quality and climate) ways to accomplish this healing, ODOT retreated to the claim that this was a safety project first and foremost -- community benefits were a secondary concern. Why then was there no discussion at all of safety in ODOT's 40-minute presentation? To me, the reasons are clear: 1) this is actually a misguided congestion relief project, not a safety or restorative project and 2) if it were actually about safety, ODOT would have to reprioritize its other local roadways over this one. There hasn t been a traffic fatality on this part of I-5 in more than ten years. Meanwhile, ODOT owns numerous major roadways across the Portland region -- including Southeast Powell Boulevard near my home in SE Portland which has seen multiple fatalities this year alone. A full environment assessment would force ODOT to be clearer about its goals, and it would restore trust that all options were being considered in the open. My hunch is that other tools would better handle the congestion piece, while the proposed spending would go a lot further to connect the Albina neighborhood, improve transit on surface streets, and make the ODOT roads that are truly hazardous safer. |
| 7346 | Jim | Schiffer | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I do not live in Portland nor do I have anything to personally lose by the construction of this freeway expansion. Despite having been stuck in horrendous traffic in this area many times in the past, I am opposed to adding any more lanes to this freeway. This is because my daughter has everything to lose from it's expansion. Given how ODOT has avoided doing a proper environmental impact study, I can see that no-one in the project thinks that this expansion will do anything good for the environment and will die on those grounds. If we want to move our urban areas away from environmentally and financially unsustainable car dependency, we cannot expand any of our overbuilt freeways anymore. We should put lids and reconnect these areas damaged by this freeway, but adding more capacity will do nothing but harm our future. ODOT seems to be unable to change and adapt from the lessons we have learned in the past 70 years. At this point, ODOT seems like it is completely controlled by its Mobility Advisory Committee (MAC) completely controlled by freight advocates. ODOT's communication with the public on this project has been completely misleading. |
| 7347 | V J | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Carbon emissions are rising. People will die from climate catastrophe. It's on you leaders to create working alternatives. Highway builders are planet killers. | |
| 7348 | Kathryn Sue | Sheibley | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I strongly urge that an environmental impact statement be conducted that actually addresses the real costs of more fossil fuel infrastructure and that it includes climate and community friendly options. |
| 7349 | Carver | Akiteru Oblander | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have significant concerns about this project proceeding without a full Environmental Impact Statement. Once this expansion is complete, the additional environmental pollution, as well as the expanded footprint of the highway, will be locked in for the foreseeable future. I think it's important to slow down and get this right, before incurring an environmental debt that tomorrow's Oregonians will pay. I am optimistic that putting lids over the highway can help begin to right some of the past historical wrongs that went into the creation of this highway in the first place. However, it is unclear to me why an effort to atone for a past injustice requires an expansion of the highway, thus doubling down on the mistakes of the past. I worry that in decades to come, there will be yet another effort to expand the highway, yet again asserting that "this time, we'll do it right", "this time, we'll solve traffic and improve safety", "this time, it will reduce pollution". How many times will we keep doing this?Please conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement. Don't railroad a highway expansion through over the objections of impacted locals, not to mention scientific facts, again. |
| 7350 | Megan | Horst | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I ride my bike in this area every day, en route from my home in NE Portland to my job downtown. I do not think this project has the best interests of Portlanders or that the analysis fully considers the environmental impacts. My viewpoints are that: 1. I am in full support of the proposed freeway caps over I-5 included in Hybrid 3. This is what ODOT owes the neighborhood, after polluting it for decades, and it should not come with strings attached. 2. There needs to be a full EIS to examine the impacts to people walking, biking, and getting around in wheelchairs in the area, and to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Most importantly, we should be fully assessing the impacts to the health of children. 3. ODTO cannot be trusted with prioritizing the environment, health, or in spending money efficiently. In 2022, with everything we know about climate change, it is reckless to expand freeways and spend all the money on cars. |
| 7351 | Sabolch | Horvat | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are several reasons why, in the current state, I am opposed to the ODOT Rose Quarter Freeway project. As a resident who lives within a few miles of the project, I am extremely concerned about the lack of community involvement in the planning process. I have attended open houses with misleading information and hidden information. I have witnessed public officials, community leaders, and community organizations step away from this project in protest. And yet, I have not seen anything to rectify these concerns. In order to gain my support, ODOT would need to mend its torn relationships with the community, study alternatives to ease traffic congestion rather than lying that adding auxiliary lanes (and possibly additional lanes) are the only solution, and perhaps ODOT needs to have a change in leadership to demonstrate that community trust matters. |
| 7352 | Alicia | Connolly | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Transparency is vital to a government that works for and with the people it serves. Why are you afraid of accountability? Providing communities correct information about the impacts of the choices you are making is not optional. Your hesitation to partner with communities in good faith broadcasts your fear. Do better. |
| 7353 | Gerhard | Pagenstecher | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need triple bottom line benefits, particularly with significant public capital projects. The EIS will help determine the cost side of the analysis to ensure the project design does not create externalities, environmental costs, that are socialized at resident expense. This cost analysis may, in turn, suggest alternative actions where the transportation allocation could meet triple bottom line objectives. |
| 7354 | E. J. | Finneran | Expanding freeways is climate malpractice. We also know that the fastest way to improve traffic flow and get cleaner air is via tolling. https://hub. jhu. edu/2017/03/02/health-effects-for-children-sweden-traffic-tax/ |
| 7355 | Janice | Rose | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is a proven fact that the more lanes that are provided, the more traffic there is. It is systemic. read some history on the matter. |
| 7356 | Alaina | Madison Keller | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a civil engineering student, I find the lack of ethical engineering by the Department of Transportation appalling. There are many potential solutions to congestion, but the expansion of freeways is not one of them. Expansion will increase pollution that will directly affect every single person in this city. There is an ethical obligation every person has to their community. ODOT should serve us. Ignoring the demands of the people and denying any record of environmental harm will directly lead to harm to real, living people. How is congestion relief more important than the health and safety of our community? |
| 7357 | Cassie | Wilson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As young people living in rural Oregon, we are acutely aware of the impacts of the climate crisis. Our communities have already been affected by extreme drought, devastating heatwaves, and a now perpetual wildfire season. The increased emissions that will come from adding lanes to the freeway will have both local and global impacts. As students studying these issues in school, we ve learned it should be the standard for projects of this scale to go through a full Environmental Impact Statement and study alternatives because the cost and impacts of projects this size are so significant. We also know that freeway expansions don t solve congestion because of induced demand. It s absurd that alternatives to expansion are not being studied and that ODOT can simultaneously claim that tolling isn t happening anytime soon yet be actively working with regional partners on plans for congestion pricing. Congestion pricing must be factored into the studies for this project. Alternatives to expansion must be studied. ODOT can and absolutely should add lids over the freeway to begin to reconnect the Albina neighborhood, but additional freeway lanes should not be part of this project. Additionally, freeway expansions are incredibly expensive and state infrastructure around the state is crumbling. Many rural communities rely on state highways and bridges as our main roads, yet they re some of the most deadly roads in the state. Studying alternatives to freeway expansion is the responsible thing to do when ODOT owns so many highways and bridges around the state that have been long neglected. |
| 7358 | Alya | Peterson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I have scar tissue in my lungs, and already have a hard time breathing whenever I am in a car on any section of freeway in Portland and surrounding areas. I do not believe that additional freeway space would be a good idea for anyone, as our lungs are already affected by what infrastructure we have, especially those tho live and work right beside the roads. Climate heating is already well underway and so many people around the world are calling for less greenhouse gasses used, fewer emissions, fewer cars. We need to be focusing on ways to reduce the pollutants in our air and expanding green spaces, more trees and plants and fungi, instead of more roads. |
| 7359 | Dave | Rowe | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The Rose Quarter freeway expansion would not be necessary if Regional Passenger Rail development could use existing rail corridors from Vancouver WA into Portland and through Portland. One and half million people a year used regional rail each year from Vancouver to Eugene in the 1910 to 1920's. Regional Passenger rail service stopped crossing the Interstate bridge in 1940's. Rail Passenger service was successfully used as an alternative route when the I-5 bridge was under repairs in the 1990's. Regional Passenger rail vehicles are different than Light Rail Transit since Light Rail vehicles cannot operate on existing freight rail tracks. Regional Passenger Rail vehicles are able to safely operate on heavy freight tracks when Positive Train Control (PTC) is used. Steel Rail Wheels are more environmental friendly compared to the auto rubber tire particles entering the streams and rivers. Two way rail tracks use a 34 feet width corridor and carry as much people as an eight lane freeway. Rail tracks and structures are cheaper, easier to build and can withstand most seismic events compared to concrete highway structures. The Cascades Train and Amtrak trains move passengers from Vancouver to Downtown Portland in 15 minutes each day. Germany successfully uses battery powered Regional Passenger rail vehicles. It is not necessary to widen the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter. |
| 7360 | Shawne | Martinez | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT, Why are you widening freeways when people are dying on your orphan highways like Route 141? No sidewalks, sporadic painted bike lanes and unsafe posted speed limits can all be improved for a fraction of the cost of expanding freeways. Prioritize people over cars. Expand public transit options, rose lanes, light rail. Give incentives for micromobility. Build MUPs. It seems like ODOT is promoting burning fossil fuels while extreme temperatures are breaking records each year. It's ok to admit you've been doing it wrong this whole time. We need to reduce car lanes, depave, and get people out of cars before it's too late. -Shawne Martinez PS The Marquam bridge is gross. Get rid of it. Thx. |
| 7361 | Jacob | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The time is long past to stop expanding freeways. We need more interconnected public transport, walkable cities, and affordable housing near those resources. We don t need more car-centric design, we don t need to encourage more air pollution. Look at what works, not what big business interests want. THE PEOPLE don t want the status quo which is more roads! | |
| 7362 | Joan | Petit | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm a resident of Eliot and a parent of children who have grown up far too close to ODOT's polluting highways, and it's well past time for ODOT to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. We won't and can't understand the full impact of this proposed project without an EIS. I am grateful to the excellent leaders of the Albina Vision Trust and the community members serving on the Historic Albina Advisory Board, but I am ashamed of ODOT for linking restorative justice with freeway building. We need lids, not lanes. It's time to separate restorative justice from building more polluting freeways. ODOT uses every tool in its arsenal --disingenuous engagement with vulnerable communities, lies, slimy PR campaigns, and law breaking -- to work against the interests of Oregonians. Why is ODOT so committed to a project so opposed by Portlanders and Oregonians? This project is a debacle and a boondoggle. It's time for ODOT to act with integrity and transparency and conduct a full EIS and restore the Albina grid with lids, before building an inch of freeway. |
| 7363 | Virginia | Feldman | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I want less polluted air; I want restorative justice for people of color who are living closer to our freeways & their pollution than we more socially advantaged peoples--and it's about time we restored the justice of this injustice; and I want safer streets than we get by building one more freeway expansion with more cars on the roads. So I request an EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter expansion. |
| 7364 | Gerson | Robboy | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct an environment impact statement for the Rose Quarter expansion, because such a statement would show that widening the freeway makes no sense, from the point of view of traffic reduction, the quality of neighborhoods, or the climate. From all these points of view, widening a freeway, especially this close to the center of the city, is an archaic idea. Some day eventually we will be moving more freight by train instead of trucks, and we will recover and reclaim the SE Portland waterfront and the N. Portland neighborhoods that are now blighted by I-5. To add more lanes now is a total waste of resources, will only increase the amount of traffic on I-5 and will contribute to the disaster of climate change. |
| 7365 | Henry | Morrison Hays-Wehle | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Public Comment in regards to the the I5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Environmental Impact Study:I write regarding the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project, specifically to ask that an adequate EIS be performed before the project proceeds further. I appreciate the opportunity to do so during this public comment period. I m a Portlander and a medical student. As such, I m deeply concerned about the proposed expansion s impact on students at Harriet Tubman Middle School, which the expanded freeway would come very close to. Pollution and poor air quality near major freeways have been linked to a variety of health issues, with the NIH including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders as areas of concern. For children, poor air quality from major freeways has been linked (per the NIH, again) to increased risk of asthma, bronchitis, and recurrent absences from learning due to respiratory infections. As a medical student, I m concerned about these long-term health impacts. No child should face long-term medical challenges because of our refusal to study the environmental impact of a construction project. In opposition to the freeway expansion, the Portland Public Schools have pointed out that the neighborhoods Harriet Tubman Middle School serves, Eliot and Albina, are some of the most diverse in Portland, and have already suffered enormous impact through freeway and urban renewal projects in the last few decades, including environmental hazard and displacement. 73. 5% of students at Harriet Tubman are considered historically underserved. The prioritization of increased convenience for car commuters at the expense of health in underserved communities is flatly racist. We must do better. City and state law insists on the study of environmental impact AND the application of an equity perspective in large-scale project planning. As a community, we owe the neighborhoods of Eliot and Albina and the students at Harriet Tubman a full EIS with a lens for equity to ensure that city and state policy will not exacerbate historical injustice and disparity. Thank you to the committee members for their time and attention to this matter. I appreciate the opportunity for public comment. I urge ODOT to heed the concerns of PPS, The Audubon Society, Environmental Council, OPAL, Oregon Metro, and numerous local, grassroots organizations in following established procedure and conducting a full EIS for the proposed freeway expansion. Regards,Henry Hays-Wehle |
| 7366 | Lizzie | Martinez | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,I drive on I-5N several times per week, and my exit is the Rose Quarter exit as I live in the Sullivan's Gulch neighborhood. While the traffic there has some issues, I am strongly opposed to building the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I believe we need to be putting our dollars into expanding access to public transportation options and options that do not encourage more driving of solo cars. I am writing to support ODOT conducting a full environmental impact statement. We need to explore all the options available for improving traffic in this area, in a way that also includes the desires and needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, commuters, and low-income community members. And this must center the voices of the African-American community members who have seen this area be gentrified and developed at the expense of the Black people who live there. It must also include the voices of students from Harriet Tubman school. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. --Lizzie Martinez, concerned resident |
| 7367 | Eli | Lehn | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It's a waste of money. The funds will be better used to repair the roads we currently have. A huge chunk could go to TriMet. Hell you could pay everyone to get a bike and pay them to bike with a billion dollars. More bike + pedestrian infrastructure, less catering to California transplants |
| 7368 | Hannah | Althea | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeway expansions don t fix congestion, and rather induce demand (causing more congestion) and displace wildlife and human life, and increase air and noise pollution. I demand you do a full EIS that includes how increased traffic would impact human lives, as well as any potential displacement. |
| 7369 | Valorie | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Just think about something else than priorities that require expenses and destruction, what about protecting and supporting the people who already live here? The length and impact of this project are ironically opposite of what it s purpose is. Slow down. We don t need more speed | |
| 7370 | Dan | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please put a lid on the expansion. That area would be so much better for the people living there. | |
| 7371 | Jan | Wulling | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Cuz I m practical, and care about public dollars |
| 7372 | Paul | Rippey | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,I think we all know that you all are not being transparent nor objective about I-5 Rose Quarter, and you are ignoring the will of many many voters, and you are turning your back to the realities of induced demand. If any of that isn't true, please contact me. What makes me sad is that Oregon was once reputed to be a leader in the area of transportation, and now we're all about highways, at a time when many cities are realizing that the era of highways is ending. You guys could be absolute HEROES if you were to admit your arrogance (even a little!), conduct a FULL and OBJECTIVE EIS, study the successes of other cities, and sit down and objectively talk with other points of view. That would start 2023 off with a bang! And, in the long run, you would look like the best DOT around. Be brave, be bold! Paul Rippey, Portland voter and tax payer. |
| 7373 | Tyler | Jamieson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: An environmental impact statement will provide us with data on what will actually be caused by expanding the freeway. With out doing these studies we will potentially create more traffic and pollution when we have the opportunity to make improvements through other means. We cannot trust ODOT to go through with this project with out conducting an environmental impact statement. |
| 7374 | AIDAN | O'REGAN | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am totally in favor of more freeway lanes in Portland |
| 7375 | Reid | Fillman | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need to be working on more bike and public transit infrastructure. We are a major city yet lack proper transport options for those that want to reduce their carbon foot print. |
| 7376 | Claire | Couch | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening despite the fact that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions. |
| 7377 | Amy | Hunter | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. ODOT has repeatedly, deliberately hid from the public crucial information necessary to understand the impacts this proposed freeway expansion will have on our community and city. Their continued efforts to avoid basic transparency and public accountability are unacceptable, and as a long-time Portland resident, I want to see reform at ODOT. The agency s claims that it cannot pursue alternatives to senseless freeway expansion are not in good faith. |
| 7378 | Kaylyn | Berry | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We are currently living through the impacts of unmitigated climate change, toward the point of no return. If we want to be climate leaders in Oregon, we need to commit to not investing in fossil fuel infrastructure. At the very least, we need to be absolutely certain that our investments are not further harm our communities with more pollution. ODOT can't cut corners on this, and needs to go through the EIS process for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. |
| 7379 | Trisha | Patterson | Hello,Please see attached public comment. -Trisha PattersonDate: Dec. 28, 2022To: Oregon Transportation CommissionGovernor Tina KotekMegan Channell, I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway ExpansionFrom: Trisha Patterson, Portland: Neighbors Welcome SecretaryShane Kwiatkowski, Portland: Neighbors Welcome Board MemberSubject: Request for full Environmental Impact Statement for Proposed Rose QuarterFreeway ExpansionPortland: Neighbors Welcome is a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for policies andactions that support and create healthy, vibrant communities. This means advocating for tenantpower, preserving affordable housing and preventing displacement of residents, advocating forzoning changes that allow density in Portland s high opportunity neighborhoods, and mostimportantly, seeing planning as an intersectional and multifaceted practice. We believe inbuilding walkable communities full of abundant, affordable housing connected by frequent,reliable transit. While integration and harmony between transit planning, housing planning, andmeeting our carbon emissions goals may never be completely aligned, we must ask ourselves,as a community, if a multi-billion dollar investment into widening our highway aligns with ourvalues and goals. We believe that the proposed $1. 4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansionwill not help solve congestion long term, meet our local and state emissions goals, nor advanceequity and restorative justice in the Albina neighborhood. We are therefore joining communitypartners including Neighbors for Clean Air and No More Freeways in demanding that ODOTconduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that studies alternatives to freeway expansion toaddress congestion, air pollution and traffic safety. To meet these long range goals racial justice and climate justice we need more transit,not more roads. We support the Albina Vision Trust s advocacy to restore the neighborhood andadd more homes. More homes does not have to mean more cars. While the vision of walkable,safe, and affordable communities may be a lofty goal, the first step is directing investmentstowards that goal. A multibillion dollar freeway expansion in this neighborhood would perpetuatethe environmental racism that built this freeway in the first place. Attached is a photo from theCity of Portland Archives that depicts how this highway cut a trench through northeast Portlandin 1962. The Highway Commission, now ODOT, razed over 300 homes to make way for thehighway. Some homeowners were paid as little as $50 a piece as compensation for the taking oftheir home. That the median home sale price in the Albina neighborhood now tops $587,000illustrates the inequality of opportunity to build Black wealth in the neighborhood andenvironmental racism at the heart of the siting, construction, and now expansion of this freeway. An expansion that will cause additional carbon emissions and worsening air quality through theheart of Portland s historic Black neighborhood is unconscionable. It is time to start repairing theharm done to the neighborhood and get serious about Portland s, and the state s, climate goals. We ask for a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) concerning the proposedRose Quarter freeway expansion. We add this letter to the litany of public testimony from many communities, and urge you to consider taking this action. We echo the demands made byAlbina Vision Trust and the No More Freeways coalition, and add our support to an EIS thatwould study alternatives to expansion. What improvements could we make to Portland ssustainable transit infrastructure with the billions of dollars earmarked for this project? Howmany electric buses could be brought online, how many bike lanes expanded and protected,how many crosswalks enhanced for pedestrian safety? A full EIS should take these alternativesinto consideration, evaluate the efficacy of the project s proposed lane caps in mitigatingadditional air pollution, and evaluate whether this project achieves the best and highest use oftaxpayer dollars. Sincerely,Trisha Patterson, Secretary, Portland: Neighbors WelcomeShane Kwiatkowski, board member, Portland: Neighbors Welcome ]Image from the Portland Auditor s office, City Archives. Minnesota Freeway (I-5), Dec. 31st, 1963. ] |
| 7380 | Lucia | [Redacted] | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I m 16 years old and I watch cities be turned into roads and landscapes be turned into smog. I watch 3 year olds spend the entire summer inside due to fires and heat. I have hope that my city will consider our lives today and the lives of future generations. I have hope that you, ODOT will face the facts about the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion through an EIS. |
| 7381 | Eva | Ringstrom | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a resident or a neighborhood where dangerous ODOT management of roadways has recently led to traffic deaths, a parent of a child with asthma, and a public policy and public health-focused evaluation professional with a background in urban planning: It is absolutely critical to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Moving forward "as is," without this EIS, is negligent. My family urges ODOT to conduct the EIS that studies alternatives to expansion. If moving forward. We also need to build lids, not lanes. Think of the future, and the health of our climate, people, and ecosystems. |
| 7382 | Becky Jo | Johnson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I remember when I-205 bridge was completed. That was supposed to decrease traffic. It did not. It is now, what, 10 lanes of stopped/crawling cars for hours at a time. My grandmother was born in Portland; some of us have been here a long tie and our families have been here a long time. We haven't forgotten the history of broken promises. The ONLY thing that has ever had a positive impact on reducing traffic in my nearly 50 years is the MAX train. I remember the Gresham Park and Ride filling up in the 90s. You want to improve the I-5 bridge? Put in a MAX line. Those are all Portland wages and income tax coming from Vancouver anyway. It could be more shoppers and more vitality for Portland. Expanding the bridge already failed on I-205. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome, it is insane to increase car lanes on I-5. Put in a bike/MAX bridge expansion and cap what is there. It takes a single google search to come up with dozens of studies on links between highways and leukemia/childhood leukemia, not to mention our earth is screaming for climate action. Just cap it and do what you KNOW will actually help, plus give you that Fed funding you so clearly want, just don't get it at the cost of human lives. Please. 3rd gen PDXer here. Born up at OHSU. We need better, smarter solutions than freeway expansion. |
| 7384 | Serenity | Ebert | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I don't trust ODOT to have the best interests of Oregonians at heart. They have repeatedly demonstrated a disregard for the well being of people, and for the environment. I demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for their proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Hold ODOT accountable. |
| 7391 | Saige | Wilde | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion as pollution is a huge concern. We should not be focusing on more cars, we need focus on alternative modes of transportation. |
| 7393 | Cole | Boileau | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?This city always says they care about the environment and the health of their citizens. Yet, when doing a task that could do both, it wants to skip it. That is two-faced behavior at its finest. I want the City to prove this is beneficial to its citizens, while not sacrificing their health. |
| 7394 | Naomi | Tsai | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I m a Portlander and a medical student. As such, I m deeply concerned about the proposed expansion s impact on students at Harriet Tubman Middle School, which the expanded freeway would come very close to. Pollution and poor air quality near major freeways have been linked to a variety of health issues, with the NIH including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders as areas of concern. For children, poor air quality from major freeways has been linked (per the NIH, again) to increased risk of asthma, bronchitis, and recurrent absences from learning due to respiratory infections. As a medical student, I m concerned about these long-term health impacts. No child should face long-term medical challenges because of our refusal to study the environmental impact of a construction project. In opposition to the freeway expansion, the Portland Public Schools have pointed out that the neighborhoods Harriet Tubman Middle School serves, Eliot and Albina, are some of the most diverse in Portland, and have already suffered enormous impact through freeway and urban renewal projects in the last few decades, including environmental hazard and displacement. 73. 5% of students at Harriet Tubman are considered historically underserved. The prioritization of increased convenience for car commuters at the expense of health in underserved communities is flatly racist. We must do better. City and state law insists on the study of environmental impact AND the application of an equity perspective in large-scale project planning. As a community, we owe the neighborhoods of Eliot and Albina and the students at Harriet Tubman a full EIS with a lens for equity to ensure that city and state policy will not exacerbate historical injustice and disparity. |
| 7395 | Anne | Montemayor | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Because we should not be expanding our freeways. |
| 7396 | Nick | Mediati | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?It's a little absurd that we are the midst of climate collapse, and yet, we have to plead with our public officials to not make things worse with freeway expansion. An EIS is the bare minimum you can do before you commit climate arson. |
| 7397 | Lisa | Caballero | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?It comes down to this: how much worse do things have to get to be bad enough for ODOT to take bold action on climate change?ODOT should not build additional lanes through the Rose quarter. A full EIS should be conducted and as well as a study on the effects of congestion pricing. Additionally, ODOT should- fix arterial highways in Portland (TV Highway, Barbur Boulevard, Powell Boulevard, McLoughlin) or transfer them to local control- close excessive freeway on- and off-ramps that disrupt surface streets and render the surrounding blocks dangerous for pedestrians and cyclistsThank you |
| 7398 | Parke | Eldred | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?They don't need to do anything but add lanes, and the sooner, the better. . . . |
| 7399 | Colin | Gibson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I don't trust ODOT. They have a track record of prioritizing car-centric mega-projects over common sense safety improvements, and they have repeatedly stonewalled on fulfilling public records requests. When it comes to the Rose Quarter freeway expansion project, I can't believe anything they say about its total cost, its long-term effects, or what the finished product will look like. Portland just experienced the highest number of pedestrian fatalities since 1948, and we continue to face the effects of climate change, both spurred on by our continued car-centric policies. We need solutions that improve safety, reduce congestion, and don't lock us into car dependence. For these reasons, I think that ODOT should:1. Implement the freeway caps, but not the freeway expansion, from the Hybrid 3 option. 2. Conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement. The EIS should include an analysis of the effects of congestion pricing *without freeway expansion. * ODOT's data, assumptions, and analytical methods should be made public to keep them from cooking the books to support their desired outcome. |
| 7400 | Susan | Millhauser | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?An EIS needs to be conducted by ODOT to fully understand all of the potential environmental costs, impacts, and benefits of the proposed I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project. This project has the potential to significantly affect the quality of the human environment, locally for the people who live, work, and go to school in very close proximity to I-5 and have already been unduly burdened by the locating of I-5 through the area for many decades, and more broadly due to the potential for increased GHG emissions and other air pollutants. A more detailed and rigorous EIS is appropriate, including detailed analysis of alternatives and rigorous and meaningful public input, with particular emphasis on Portland s Black community. |
| 7401 | Brenda | Snyder | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?We need to build for a sustainable future, not repeat mistakes of the past. We need a full EIS to give us to true environmental cost of this project. |
| 7402 | Chris | Smith | Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 1:22 PMTo: CHANNELL Megan <Megan. CHANNELL@odot. oregon. gov> Cc: i5RoseQuarter@odot. oregon. govSubject: Possible Errata in RQ SEA Traffic reportMegan,I hope you are well. One of our analysts noted what appears to be a data discrepancy (or at least a very odd coincidence) in Tables 5 and 6 in the Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report. The AM results in both tables appear to be identical, i. e. , the values for 7-8am and 8-9am are the same. We're guessing that this was a data transcription error in assembling the tables. Could you confirm if this is the case, and if so issue an errata with the correct data? Thanks. Chris |
| 7403 | Sydney | McCarthy | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I write regarding the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project, specifically to ask that an adequate EIS be performed before the project proceeds further. I appreciate the opportunity to do so during this public comment period. I m a Portlander and a medical student. As such, I m deeply concerned about the proposed expansion s impact on students at Harriet Tubman Middle School, which the expanded freeway would come very close to. Pollution and poor air quality near major freeways have been linked to a variety of health issues, with the NIH including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders as areas of concern. For children, poor air quality from major freeways has been linked (per the NIH, again) to increased risk of asthma, bronchitis, and recurrent absences from learning due to respiratory infections. As a medical student, I m concerned about these long-term health impacts. No child should face long-term medical challenges because of our refusal to study the environmental impact of a construction project. In opposition to the freeway expansion, the Portland Public Schools have pointed out that the neighborhoods Harriet Tubman Middle School serves, Eliot and Albina, are some of the most diverse in Portland, and have already suffered enormous impact through freeway and urban renewal projects in the last few decades, including environmental hazard and displacement. 73. 5% of students at Harriet Tubman are considered historically underserved. The prioritization of increased convenience for car commuters at the expense of health in underserved communities is flatly racist. We must do better. City and state law insists on the study of environmental impact AND the application of an equity perspective in large-scale project planning. As a community, we owe the neighborhoods of Eliot and Albina and the students at Harriet Tubman a full EIS with a lens for equity to ensure that city and state policy will not exacerbate historical injustice and disparity. Thank you to the committee members for their time and attention to this matter. I appreciate the opportunity for public comment. I urge ODOT to heed the concerns of PPS, The Audubon Society, Environmental Council, OPAL, Oregon Metro, and numerous local, grassroots organizations in following established procedure and conducting a full EIS for the proposed freeway expansion. Regards,[Signature] |
| 7404 | Samantha | Alderman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?The responsibilities of local government specifically require that a community's resources and vulnerabilities be safeguarded and well managed. It is for this reason that society ever decided to hand these privileges to an independent counsel in the form of government-- so that outside interests would find it more difficult to take advantage of common resources and spaces belonging to the public. Expanding the Freeway in the Rose Quarter violates this core responsibility of local government. The majority of citizens are against the fundamental changes that this expansion would result in. Generational churn has produced new citizens that are more concerned with environmental impact than convenience or speed. Americans have proven time and time again that we can overcome any difficult situation we are handed, and expansion to the freeway is simply an antiquated cop out that doesn't seek to find a long term solution to a long term problem. We can find a better solution than this, and patting ourselves on the back for such short foresight is a mistake the politicians involved will not be forgotten for. Please use your wisdom to impress those younger generations who will have to live their entire lives with mistakes that are more expensive to fix than they were to make if this moves forward. |
| 7405 | Jaron | Heard | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Because we should not be expanding freeways, we should be investing in transportation solutions that positively impact our climate and environment. |
| 7406 | Steve | Piercy | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?No more fucking freeways. You know why. Knock that shit off. |
| 7407 | Carmen | Melore | This is a regressive tax that directly affects working class people. People should not have to pay to have access to publicly funded roads. We need to focus on public transportation improvements. This will reduce the traffic and encourage more people to use public transportation. This city is at a brink of collapse why divide it even more |
| 7408 | Riley | Appelgren | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?The Rose Quarter is home to the most peaceful part of my life- the Albina Cooperative Garden. This place has provided community, sustenance, and peace throughout the pandemic to myself, nearly 50 other members, and countless volunteers and neighbors. To expand the nearby freeway without considering the environment seems unthinkable. We need to reevaluate our priorities in Oregon on how valuable land is used - will it be for people to grow and nurture the community, or will it be paved over again and again for cars? |
| 7419 | Josh | Hetrick | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the I-5 Rose Quarter Project. A project of this magnitude requires more thorough consideration than provided by the Environmental Assessment (EA). In particular, it must thoroughly and fairly consider alternatives to expanding freeway lanes that would better serve the project's stated safety and emissions goals. ODOT's estimations in the EA are flawed and incomplete, but even by their own estimations this proposal will have minimal impact to safety, congestion, and emissions in the project area. For example, ODOT assumes free-flowing traffic as a near-constant, ignoring induced demands and the impact of nearby bottlenecks in the road system. Even if that were somehow true (flying in the face of observed evidence from every other urban freeway expansion, including those done previously by ODOT), they only project that 2% of improved emissions would be due to their proposed changes. Yet they claim an overall emissions improvement of over 20% burying in the fine print that most of their projected gains would come from improved fuel efficiency. This project has no claim over fuel standards and has no business taking credit for them. With this kind of analysis, the community is right to be skeptical and deserves better. Buildable caps over the highway in the Rose Quarter are welcome, but this does not require expansion of highway lanes. There's no technical reason why capping the freeway has to be coupled with lane expansion. ODOT has simply never considered or studied that as an option. If the project intends to fulfill its obligations to restorative justice, restoring the community that the highway destroyed in the first place should be priority number one. Instead, ODOT has consistently used this part of the project as a bargaining chip and short-changed its potential. We must also recognize the climate crisis we are in, and reject new fossil fuel infrastructure. The opportunity cost of this project is enormous; these funds should be invested in a sustainable, safe transportation system. More freeway lanes are a bad investment for our state finances and our future. A full EIS is the only way forward for this proposal. |
| 7420 | Josh | Hetrick | The Brooklyn Action Corps has reviewed the Supplemental Environmental Assessment. We submit that: * The Environmental Assessment does not sufficiently consider all of the project's impacts. The EA doesn't include the study of alternatives to highway expansion, including congestion pricing without adding lanes. A full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is necessary to comprehensively identify all aspects of this massive proposal. * Buildable caps over the highway in the Rose Quarter are welcome, but this does not require expansion of highway lanes. There's no technical reason why capping the freeway has to be coupled with lane expansion. ODOT has simply never considered or studied that as an option. * Instead of spending billions widening freeways, focus on improving safety on ODOT roads. In the last 18 months alone in the Brooklyn neighborhood, multiple people have died on Powell and McLoughlin Blvds (both ODOT roads). In the face of a surge in road user deaths, the opportunity cost of this project is far too high when the money could be better spent to save lives. The freeways in the Rose Quarter area are relatively safe and the level of funds being spent are not warranted. * ODOT has not been sufficiently transparent, truthful, or responsive. Important project details have been obscured or hidden from the public, and were only revealed after continued action and pressure from community members. In response to deaths on ODOT-maintained roads in our neighborhood, the Brooklyn Action Corps reached out to ODOT multiple times in hopes of improving safety and avoiding further needless deaths and injuries. ODOT never even answered our letters. These join the long list of concerns we have raised during previous phases of this project negative impacts to walking, biking, and transit on surface streets in the project area; ballooning cost estimates; continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure; inability to solve congestion through expansion; and air quality at Harriet Tubman School and in the broader project area. Given these concerns, the Brooklyn neighborhood continues to oppose this project as proposed and demands a full EIS. Brooklyn Action Corpshttps://brooklyn-neighborhood. org/ |
| 7421 | John | Lansing | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?The expansion of the Interstate 5 through the urban center downtown Portland is in direct opposition to the regions climate goals and viability of other modes of transportation. The degree that this project will negatively impact air and sound pollution in the surrounding neighborhood is not well understood and raises serious equitably issues. |
| 7422 | Alexandra | Parker | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?We cannot afford to expand our freeways during this time. Our climate is getting worse. Fires are raging. We could use this money to fund a green future with expansion of public transit, bike lanes and trains. We need a green future. We cannot keep living in a fantasyland in which "one more lane will fix it. " We owe it to ourselves and our children and our children's children to do this right, right now. We cannot wait twenty or forty or sixty more years to fix this. At the very least ODOT can conduct an Environmental Impact Statement. Please ODOT do the right thing. Oregon could be a climate leader if we actually give it our all. Do the right thing. Thank you. |
| 7423 | Cathy | Tuttle | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?It's grown from a bridge maintenance project to a massive freeway expansion mega project. It's time to step back and reevaluate how we are investing our future. I support a freeway lid and absolutely no freeway lane expansion. Please complete an EIS and look at alternatives that better support life. Thank you,[Signature] |
| 7424 | Riley | Hutchings | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?This highway will further pollute a neighborhood with little benefit to the neighbors. In the long term, highway expansions lead to more highway usage and the highways become just as crowded as they were pre-expansion. Please build more/further reaching public transportation to reduce car usage instead! |
| 7425 | Monika | Pitchford | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I am concerned expansion will impact everyone living near the highway not just through emissions but also noise pollution. "The World Health Organization estimates that 4. 2 million premature deaths globally are linked to ambient (that is, outdoor) air pollution, mainly from heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and respiratory infections in children. "We need to cap and shrink highways. The funds should go to a rail and electric bus network. |
| 7426 | William | Wheatley | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Spending $1. 45 billion+ without fully investigating the impacts and possible alternatives is totally irresponsible and unacceptable. The money would be much better spent repairing existing infrastructure and investing in alternative transportation options with tolling/congestion pricing used to improve traffic and reduce pollution. |
| 7427 | Robert | Duvoisin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed Rose Quarter freeway expansion. I m particularly dismayed over ODOT s lack of transparency with regard to this project, including incomplete and misleading information on traffic projections, an inadequate analysis by the Peer Review Panel, and what appears deception about the true width of the proposed freeway. It also troubles me that ODOT has not considered tolling or congestion pricing as an alternative to freeway expansion. ODOT should be required to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement and consider the impact of congestion pricing on freeway volumes before proceeding with this project. Especially given that we are in a climate urgency. Spending perhaps 1 billion dollars to relieve congestion for a few hours a day is a real waste considering what could be done instead to improve safety on high crash corridors and elsewhere in our city. |
| 7428 | Karen | Austin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I and many others demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. This EIS should fully follow standards established by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). And discuss and assess options that would also allow the public to travel through this area without the same hazardous impacts. We do not have much time ODOT to reduce our climate emissions without increasing the deadly storms and heatwaves that come with a destabilized atmosphere. The EIS should cover climate change impacts and help citizens to use lower to no-carbon transportation options. And once the EIS is completed it is only reasonable that ODOT choose the option with the lowest carbon footprint! |
| 7429 | Travis | Loden | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Lane expansion does not solve the problem and only makes more problems down the line. |
| 7430 | Janna | Tessman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I feel like a mom at a grocery store, "No we are not buying new freeways. We already have freeways at home. "I demand an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway expansion. We have ramps that go to nowhere and should be making room for housing, pedestrians, walkable and bikeable mass transit. The disabled, the elderly, the youth, CANNOT drive. Stop subsidizing the oil industry with my tax dollars. I want a publice service, not a zombie car industry propped up by tax funded infrastructure. Cars are dirty and deadly. Make it stop |
| 7431 | M | Jones | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?An EIS is necessary, and ODOT keeps trying to weasel out on having one conducted, because ODOT and everyone else all know that the EIS will prove that the expansion is not only unnecessary and damaging to our communities and health but also just plain bad for the environment. |
| 7432 | Cory | Pinckard | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?ODOT is insisting on failed urban planning practices over sustainable transportation and our lives! They need to be forensically audited for bribes; they are blatantly derelict in their civic duties, and are clearly unfit for service. |
| 7433 | Paul | Runge | To whom it may concern, I am a 31 year old Portland resident and an urban planning consultant (though I am writing in a personal capacity today). I live near the intersection of two ODOT facilities: 82nd Ave and Powell Blvd I drive, bike, and take the bus to get around. I m writing to share my opposition to this project s inclusion of freeway auxiliary lanes and any freeway widening that would facilitate the addition of lanes in the future. I support moving forward with a project scope that includes multimodal connectivity investments and highway caps without freeway widening. A support conducting a full Environmental Issue Statement, due to the issues I lay out below. A foundational issue is that none of the purpose, need, and goal statements for the project (executive summary, pages 3-4) are environmental in nature. Per Governor Brown s EO 20-04, Oregon has a goal of 80% GHG emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2050. Yet Oregon s Department of Transportation which oversees facilities and investments for the transportation sector, the sector that contributes most to Oregon s emissions is not including any clearly environmental goals in the Rose Quarter improvements, one of its marquee projects. This approach does not match Oregon s stated intentions. The failure to include environment among project purposes and goals sets the project up to deemphasize environmental protection and Oregon s climate-change mitigation goals. Induced and latent demand, the key forces that could cause freeway expansion to increase GHG emissions, are not mentioned by name in the entire Climate Change Supplemental Technical Report. They are not mentioned in the EA executive summary. They are not mentioned in the Climate Change section of the online open house. Of the above mentioned documents, ODOT only acknowledges these forces on pages 104-105 of the Supplement EA, finding that the project area will see a 14% increase in VMT by 2045 due to latent demand. I have two reactions to this. First, it is problematic that this contentious project theme appears to be hidden away 100 pages into the EA, while being seemingly unmentioned in the Climate Change Technical Report, the Executive Summary, and the online open house. As an urban planner, I hesitate to criticize my colleagues, especially with limited evidence given that it s practically impossible to read in depth and digest the hundreds of pages of technical materials that comprise this project s documentation. However, I will say this: I believe this EA and project at large is making an error in judgment by deemphasizing environment and stifling the discussion of contrary ideas. Professionally, I would not feel comfortable participating. Second, I question the extent to which induced and latent demand have been adequately explored. The Supplemental EA states, The Revised Build Alternative would not affect land use in ways that are contrary to planned land use and would not have growth inducing impacts that are contrary to planned land use (page 56). Seemingly as evidence, that paragraph further describes the RBA s alignment with high density mixed use development in Portland and compliance with Portland s zoning code and design review. What this passage does not acknowledge is that investments in the core of a transportation network could have impacts on reliability, speed, and perceived costs of driving felt at the urban fringes. If, for example, the RQ project marginally improves car travel times and experience for users from Clark County, the principle of induced demand would indicate it would promote development at those urban fringes, supplementary to or substituting for more urban development. Yes, this may be planned land use in the sense that it conforms with zoning in Clark County. But if it saps development activity from places like inner Portland where people have opportunities to drive less, it will promote VMT and emissions. This idea, that investments in one place could have impacts miles away at the urban edge, appears underexplored in this document. As long as that is true, one of the core environmental impacts of the project will remain unassessed. This is an argument in favor of a full Environmental Impact Statement. I ll close by mentioning that the Census recently announced its estimate that the state of Oregon lost population in 2022 for the first time in over 30 years. Shrinking population damages the revenues government relies on to invest and provide services. Can we really afford to spend over a billion dollars at a moment like this on a project that won t decrease vehicle emissions and VMT (per Climate Change section of online open house)? Can we afford to accept as fact traffic modeling assumptions that assume a population growth path currently under question? I don t think so. The opportunity cost of this project is extraordinary. Oregonians shouldn t pay it. Thanks as always to the diligent staff reviewing and cataloging these comments. [Signature] |
| 7434 | Aurelia | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Because of induced demand, more lanes will bring more traffic, which will cause more pollution. ODOT is saying that capping the freeway will reduce the pollution, but it is possible to cap the freeway without widening it. | |
| 7435 | Zana | Hristic | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?No more freeways, PLEASE!!!ODOT continued efforts to avoid basic transparency and public accountability are unacceptable. ODOT claims that cannot pursue alternatives to senseless freeway expansion are not in good faith. I am concern about the dangerous impacts of the additional lanes of freeway and the congestion it will bring to our streets, the air pollution it will bring to our lungs, and the carbon emissions that it will add to our alarmingly warming planet. The damage to our community and our city will be irreversible. Thank you! |
| 7436 | Bill | Harris | Gentle persons: Please proceed with additional study of the effects of expansion of the Rose Quarter freeway. We need this immense amount of money to be spent to help reduce release of greenhouse gas by contruction which facilitates alternative and electrical transportation. Tolling is the first step in reducing the number of trips by internal combustion engines. Plan for promotimg fewer trips to help clean center city air. [Signature] |
| 7437 | Danielle | Maillard | To: Oregon Department of Transportation, I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project TeamSubject: Supplemental EA public comment periodFor decades, Oregon Walks has worked to make Portland safer for all people by advocating for better pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure. In all of our years of advocacy and community engagement, freeway expansion has never been an equitable, safe, or financially astute solution to congestion. ODOT s own analysis of the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project is in direct conflict with its own stated safety and equity goals. The Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) claims that the relocation of the I-5 SB off ramp (NE Wheeler/N Ramsay/N Williams and N Vancouver) will increase the length and complexity of crossings, thereby reducing pedestrian safety. Additionally, the SEA claims increased potential for pedestrian auto conflict due to the placement of the I-5 SB off-ramp and updated turning movements. At a time when Portland is suffering through record rates of pedestrian deaths, it is astonishing we would consider a project that puts more pedestrians in danger. This freeway project is a direct threat to the living and a disgrace to those who have died by traffic fatalities on ODOT s roads. Alone, safety concerns should stop this project as designed. Environmental concerns, though, are also vast. As we wrote in our letter to you in 2019, it is imperative that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the impacts freeway expansion would have on our streets, our water, and in our childrens lungs. Considering the climate crisis and our understanding of the deleterious impacts of vehicular emissions, it is truly unbelievable that ODOT is not deeply interested and invested in fully understanding the environmental impacts of this project. Whatever decision is made about this project, can we not, at the very least, be fully aware of the environmental damage to which we are committing?Rather than further invest in single occupancy vehicles, we support ODOT in looking for solutions for traffic congestion that do not further displace residents and hinder people s ability to live, work, play, and move without using a vehicle. On behalf of future generations, ODOT must pursue options other than freeway expansion to reduce congestion. The consequences of freeway construction on communities are vast, but they are not irreversible. ODOT has the opportunity to reject the false notion that freeway expansion solves traffic congestion. We have seen time and again that induced demand is inevitable when roadways become wider. With more lanes comes more vehicles. The Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion will absolutely inhibit goals of reducing carbon emissions. Oregon Walks supports the proposed freeway cap over I-5. We support continued investment in the Albina neighborhood, including the freeway lids, affordable housing, and safer streets, without the additional cars, air pollution, and threats to pedestrians that come with investing in single occupancy vehicles. We support a vision that improves connectivity, centers community, and repairs the wrongs of previous freeway construction. We support using creative tools like congestion pricing and investment in active transportation and transit to reduce vehicular congestion. To achieve this, ODOT must leave behind additional lane miles for I-5. In short, we support the lid, but not the lanes. Thank you,[Signature] |
| 7438 | Cory | Pinckard | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?ODOT is fighting for an idea that has long been proven to fail in practice (freeway widening causes induced demand worsening traffic congestion) so the only rational conclusions are that they re being corrupted (almost certainly by bribes) or that they re actively racist to the point of being forcibly willing to make Portland even more congested, inefficient with space, non-green, expensive for residents (most of whom are already struggling financially), perpetuate more deaths from automobile hit and runs, auto collisions, automotive related pollution, urban sprawl, food deserts etc. just in order for the continuance of racial wealth disparity to continue through carcentric urban planning reinforced redlining, lack of commuter rail infrastructure causing the marginalized communities to suffer from lack of connectivity to their neighborhoods and the rest of the metropolitan area, suffering enormously from toxic pollutants and other unnecessary, disgusting plights of urban reverse white flight blight. Whatever their automotive motive is, it s a colossal leap backwards for Portland and would immensely harm the city through reputation ruination for decades and decades. Freeway widening is at direct odds with the city brand and urban planning experts both. I hope Portland isn t further embarrassed by their utter incompetence and/or bigotry. Build us some more commuter rail already!! |
| 7439 | Tim | Mongin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I am but one of many bicycle commuters who is exposed to horrible air quality and aggressive drivers flying on or off I-5 at the Rose Quarter twice daily. Is a solution needed? Yes, but it by no means involves expanding I-5 for even more polluting traffic. The people of Portland deserve better. We need to cap the freeway in order to make the area safe for all Oregonians, not just those behind a 4,000lb vehicle. A freeway cap is an important step in fixing a project which destroyed Portland's historic Black cultural center. Instead of creating barriers to divide the community with an I-5 expansion, build projects which bring people together. Cap the freeway! If you want a big project, expand the I-5 freeway caps to cover the entire mess ODOT created along the Eastbank Esplanade. |
| 7440 | Jason | Fifield | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I don't believe that ODOT has been transparent or forthcoming in their process thus far. Therefore, it is essential that an Environmental Impact Statement is conducted for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion so we, as Portlanders, will have a better understanding of the result this project would bring to our city. Portland has greatly benefited from a reduction in freeways and freeway lanes. This has made it a more walkable and liveable city that allows for transit to occur at a human scale much more than in most other cities in the US. Covering I-5 in the Rose Quarter area could be a benefit, but adding lanes to I-5 will only increase traffic, increase pollution, and have a detrimental impact to the Rose Quarter area. Adding lanes to freeways encourages more traffic and results in more gridlock. Cities from Seattle to Houston, to Los Angeles have demonstrated this many times over. That is not what we need in Portland. |
| 7441 | Tony | Jordan | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Enough is enough. The damage to our urban fabric and our environment due to the existing highways and stroads in our region is immeasurable. It will take generations to repair and even with our best efforts the future we leave for our children is uncertain. We must stop making the same mistakes and a full EIS for the Rose Quarter expansion is needed to expose this project for one that we simply cannot afford -- in treasure or impact. ODOT cannot be trusted to be honest with us about the high cost of highway expansion. We should cover the freeway (honestly we should fill it with sand) without any expansions and stitch the neighborhood back together in a way that promotes walkability and equity. |
| 7442 | Linore | Blackstone | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Oh for goodness sake, why do you continue to press for such freeway expansion when you surely know better. What is your ethic? Why target manage? Some of you in ODOT must be pressing for commitment to this earth, its life. . . Surely? Or am I just another of those pesky voices out there who fail to understand that progress means exploitation and invasion and using up. I despair |
| 7443 | Brian | Smith | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?ODOT has never been fully transparent in previous environmental impact assessments, never based them on realistic data, and never properly taken into account the impact of alternatives such as congestion tolling on traffic usage. I support the proposed building-bearing lids that will help restore the harm done to the neighborhood when the highway was initially created, but can't support any freeway widening, capacity increase, or other traffic flow improvement that is claimed to be neither a widening or capacity increase until the health impacts and climate impacts are properly accounted for. My son, who grew up just a couple blocks from I-84 close to the proposed I-5 widening location, has asthma. Can I prove causation in his particular case? No, but study after study has clearly shown the linkage between freeway proximity and a host of health issues. Even if all road traffic were emission free, the impacts of tire dust, vehicle fires and other associated pollutants is a very real danger. There will probably never be a stream where salmon could swim right where the proposed project is, but it would sure be nice if the nearby Willamette river had just a little less pollution to contend with. (See study strongly linking tire dust to creeks uninhabitable by salmon. ) |
| 7444 | Daniel | Nunes | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Expanding freeways will negatively impact the health of all living things in the vicinity, but particularly the humans who live in the neighborhoods adjacent. The notion that adding lanes will reduce emissions somehow is preposterous. |
| 7445 | Alice | West | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Our climate is in crisis. Portland has more and more days with air stagnation and unhealthy levels of air pollution. Expanding the freeway that runs next to homes and schools without doing an environmental impact survey is negligent at best. Thank you for putting the long term interests of Portland and our well being first. The freeway should not be expanded. Investing in public transit and other ways of moving people is the way forward. |
| 7446 | Tina | Ricks | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?The Rose Quarter freeway expansion is all about satisfying people who live elsewhere and corporate freight interests on the backs of real people who live in the city. I live in Beaverton, and these proposed lanes are ostensibly for me to more easily drive my car anywhere I want to go in metro Portland. The cost is the planet and the livability of the city. We have enough freeways. We need more frequent buses and MAX trains, and higher pay to retain drivers. We need protected, connected bike lanes. Conduct a full, honest EIS, and implement what you learn. This project should go the way of Portland s Mt. Hood Freeway that never happened. |
| 7447 | Stasia | Honnold | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I am incredibly disappointed that ODOT persists in pushing for this freeway expansion. One of the reasons I moved to Portland 23 years ago is its progressive policies, bicycle-and-bus friendliness, and, I thought, focus on environmentally conscious living. Things like expanding freeways in no way fit into the Portland I believe in OR the Portland we should be aiming for. Climate change is real, and burning fossil fuels is one of the biggest drivers of climate change. If we are to be true climate leaders, we need to discourage single-occupancy driving, encourage alternate modes of transportation, and invest in a sustainable future for our region. Expanding a freeway is not any of these things. Coming from California, I've seen first-hand what happens when freeways get wider: more people drive on them, and then they are still clogged. When I look at this project, I think of everything that is wrong with California: the supremacy of planning for automobiles, the never-ending expansions that decrease livability and make air quality a disaster, the egregious effects on people's heath as it becomes less and less possible to even conceive of traveling by a mode different than single-occupancy vehicles. As an immediate solution, congestion pricing should be looked at as a more viable option to deal with the current traffic on I-5 than expanding it. More long term, we should be spending our money on truly making Portland a city where people don't feel like they need to drive by bettering our transit, bicycle, and walking options. Again, there is no place for freeway expansion in this. I am incredibly disappointed by this proposal, which seems like something entirely backwards that we might have entertained in the 1950s. Times have changed, and the solutions to our problems need to change too. Please get with the times, ODOT. Conduct a full environmental impact statement, listen to the data, and listen to those of us who care about the world we live in and the impact our decisions have on the future. |
| 7448 | Jacob | Hoffman-Andrews | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?It is very clear to me that the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion will have a significant environmental impact. Road emissions are one of the biggest sources of particulate emissions and carbon emissions in our city and our state, and those emissions have a terrible impact of the health of our children. That impact falls disproportionately on people of color. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement on this expansion. ODOT has cloaked this project in the language of racial justice and claimed that it is attempting to undo the decades of harm that have been done to the Albina neighborhood by freeway construction. However, widening the freeway itself _continues_ that harm. Putting caps over the existing freeway to allow reconnecting the existing street grid is an excellent idea, but it should not be tied to expanding the freeway. We can, and should, reconnect the street grid without adding lanes of traffic. ODOT's history of deception around this project speaks volumes about why the agency cannot be trusted to tell the truth to the public. Among many other deceptions, ODOT concealed the true width of the expansion they are planning, and repeatedly claimed the project is not a freeway expansion, which is "objectively misleading" (according to Metro, and also according to anyone who understands the plain meaning of words). |
| 7449 | Beth | Stebbins | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?If more lanes only lead to more traffic, there must be a better way. |
| 7450 | Claire | Vlach | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?As a pedestrian advocate, I am already dismayed that ODOT is planning on spending $1. 5 billion on a freeway expansion project while we are facing a traffic violence epidemic in addition to increasing human misery and death due to our already-changing climate. In Portland alone, 33 pedestrians were killed in 2022, and a disproportionate number of those were on ODOT roadways. Despite those numbers, ODOT claims that there isn't funding available to make our orphan highways safer for vulnerable road users-- but somehow manages to find funding for freeway construction. My dismay turned to incredulity when I read the Supplemental Environmental assessment. ODOT claims that safety is their number one priority, but in ODOT's own words, the Revised Build Alternative will 1) close two crosswalks, when best practices state that all legs of an intersection should be open to pedestrians; 2) "create difficult crossing for pedestrians" (p. 96) at Williams and Weidler, and 3) include "increased potential for pedestrian auto conflict. " (p. 97). It is completely unconscionable for ODOT to propose a project that they know will create life and safety hazards for people walking in the area. The one upside to this proposal are the new freeway caps in the current version of the project. These spaces will help reconnect the neighborhood and make walking over the freeway more pleasant for pedestrians. However, widening the freeway is not necessary to building the caps-- instead, it will make it both more difficult and more expensive. The caps and other neighborhood improvements should be made without the freeway widening, to begin to mitigate the harm ODOT caused when the freeway was originally built. Active transportation issues are just one of the many problems this project has. Freeway widening has never solved traffic congestion, so ODOT's claims that this project will somehow reduce emissions by easing congestion are ludicrous. In a few years we'll be right back to the same level of congestion, but with even more cars on the road. Even if emissions were magically reduced, asthma-causing air pollution near a freeway is also caused by particulates such as those from tires, and those would certainly not be reduced by reducing congestion. Due to all of these issues, ODOT should be required to perform a full study of the project's impacts in the form of an EIS. |
| 7451 | Jeffrey | Yasskin | I have several comments on the Supplemental I-5 expansion EA. 1. It was inappropriate to run the comment period from Thanksgiving toNew Years. This doesn't give independent organizations enough time toreview the details and check ODOT's work. 2. The executive summary asserts that "Without the Project, congestionon I-5 and in the vicinity of the Broadway/Weidler interchange wouldcontinue to worsen. " This ignores that ODOT is working on addingcongestion pricing as part of its Regional Mobility Pricing Project. The fact that the EA doesn't even mention congestion pricing as analternative means it can't have accurately modeled the impact of theNo Build option, and ODOT needs to redraft the EA to includecongestion pricing as part of all of the alternatives. 3. The EA asserts that expanding the highway would both reducecongestion and "not substantially improve highway capacity" (page 34). This is impossible, since congestion is caused by traffic demandexceeding capacity, and the project doesn't propose to do anything toreduce demand. This error calls into question the EA's claim that theproject won't increase GHG Emissions and other pollution. 4. The allocation of $1. 5B to the construction of this project meansthat money isn't available to improve safety in other locations. It'sinappropriate to pretend that "No Build" at this location means wedon't get any safety improvements. Instead, the analysis of the NoBuild option should look at the likely range of other safetyimprovements that would be possible with the same money. One recentexample is that ODOT is resisting spending money on improving safetyalong Powell Blvd because they're spending it all on this project. 5. Pages 96-97 discuss "increased potential for pedestrian autoconflict". This is inconsistent with the top-line claim that"conditions for pedestrians and cyclists would generally improve inthe API". 6. The EA pretends that the highway cover, with its benefits for landuse and active transit connectivity, is only possible if the rest ofthe proposed highway expansion is built. This is not true, and the EAshould analyze the possibility of building just the cover without theincreased lanes. 6. This project is complex enough that ODOT should do a full EISinstead of the abbreviated EA. |
| 7452 | Emily | Stebbins | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?ODOT should conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement before expanding the freeway at the Rose Quarter. We can invest in freeway caps, affordable housing, and other infrastructure than will help heal some of the historic harm caused by building the freeway through neighborhoods, without expanding that freeway and incurring new harm. This section of freeway is part of my current commute from SE to N Portland. Traffic motivates me to take the bus or ride my bike whenever I can -- and rightly so! Infrastructure should make it easier, not harder, for me and others to make the healthier choice. An EIS would provide important information for ODOT and the public to consider before widening the road to climate destruction. |
| 7453 | Gwendolyn | King | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?Expanding freeways is bad for people's health and safety and contributes to global warming because it leads to more cars on the road via induced demand. We're in a climate crisis and it is horrifying to me that a freeway expansion would even be considered. We need fewer people driving, not more, if we want to avoid more global disaster. Already, pollution negatively impacts the health of Portlanders who live, work, and go to school along I-5. Expanding the freeway will worsen this. |
| 7454 | Jacob | Apenes | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a car-free Portlander, I demand we build a more walkable, less polluted city. Especially living in Northeast Portland, developing a cap over the I-5 freeway would substantially connect my neighborhoods in a way unseen since the Federal-Aid Freeway Act of 1956. I-5 does not need more lanes running through my city. Not only will this have minimal to no impact on traffic decongestion, but may increase traffic over time via induced demand. As we look to solve the climate crisis, extra cars on our streets will only make the solution more difficult to attain. Additionally, car pollution hurts my lungs, will hurt my children's' lungs, and cause adverse effects for years to come. Please build a lid on I-5. Please also have ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. We know car pollution is bad; this EIS is necessary. |
| 7455 | Chris | Chaplin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?I believe ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit. While ODOT continues to officially insist that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable in the future and therefore should not be studied as an alternative to freeway widening, I know that OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin has said publicly that tolling is the only source of revenue that ODOT can possibly use to fill the funding gaps for this project. Numerous ODOT studies show that congestion pricing without widening the freeway would eliminate traffic congestion while also providing cleaner air for the neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions The Portland Mercury wrote about this in 2018, and ODOT s study this summer supports this finding. I believe ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. And, whether the goal of "reducing congestion" is really a worthy goal to pursue given the myriad, *much* more serious problems awaiting us all if we do not immediately and drastically curb carbon emissions. At our current trajectory, measures like this one that would seek to widen freeways and incentivize *even more* carbon emission is doing little more than greasing the pathway to our collective demise. |
| 7456 | Joe | Rowe | Attachments: PDF Joe Rowe slides
feedback PDF Joe Rowe 6 page document feedback PDF of the ODOT postcard I
received asking for feedback Nov 15 2022 to Jan 4th 2023 Youtube video
feedback https://youtu. be/HHzXt223V2A
Subject: I request a full EIS for the ODOT Rose Quarter Mega Freeway and all ODOT freeway projects and criminal obscurification in the State of Oregon Abstract: The evidence here is uncontested. We examine an email and postcard created by the Oregon Department of Transportation asking the public to review a 154 page document and provide feedback. My opinion based on this evidence is that the Oregon Department of Transportation is involved in patterns of bad faith operations. After attending 15 years of meetings in Salem Oregon none of my questions have been answered with honesty or detail. ODOT has been involved in criminal obscurification as they have burned through $400 million to plan two urban freeways that will cost us up to $10 billion in bonds, delays and legal battles. I urge ODOT to extend the current Rose Quarter Freeway comment period ending on January 4th 2022 to April 1, 2021. I have provided evidence and hold the opinion that the majority of people who care about the planet could not accomplish the goals ODOT requested.
ODOT requested two things of the public
1. Logic would say flier should have had two QR codes pointing to:
2. There are no clear or reasonable steps to get to the online document 3. The only clear option is visiting 216 SE Knott St to find the document 4. It took me 10 minutes and 8 clicks to get from the QR code to the actual document. It is very unlikely a majority of people will succeed. 5. The ODOT Postal Flier is a barrier to finding the Supplemental Environmental Assessment online.
6. ODOT sent me email and I've provided a redacted copy
"After the 2019 publication, the Oregon Transportation Commission directed an Independent Cover Assessment which looked at changes to the highway cover design. Based on design refinements and community feedback, a single, larger highway cover capable of supporting up to six-story buildings was proposed for the project. The Supplemental EA looks closely at those design changes, now called the Proposed Hybrid 3 Cover Concept."
On any given day of normal commuter traffic there are vehicles halted just beyond the project's boundaries. Let's examine what happens to drivers on Interstate 5 as they exit this project to the North and South. This daily halted traffic is seen at exit 302C Northbound every evening just North of Exit 302C. Page 26 of 154 states "A new NB auxiliary lane would be added to connect the I-84 WB on-ramp to the N Greeley Avenue off-ramp" Translated: ODOT is adding a new lane to the existing 4 lanes of Interstate 5 Northbound. Then at exit 302C these 5 lanes are reduced to 2 lanes for Interstate 5. The other 3 lanes branch off to the Interstate 405 bridge headed West. It's worth repeating: There are only 2 lanes on interstate 5 past exit 302C. Daily traffic stalls and crawls further North with no added capacity. Web archive of the ODOT website as of Jan 2nd, 2023 here: https://web. archive.org/web/20230103072700/ https://www.i5rosequarter. org/ Let's examine page 269 from this very old 600 page ODOT document. You can see my traffic analysis VISSIM question has never been answered. The answer has never been emailed to me, it has never been put into any ODOT document. My question was deleted by ODOT but archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20211128164313/nhttps://www. i5rosequarter. org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/App. -I_I5RQ_FINAL_CSR. pdf and here: https://drive. google. com/file/d/1f_CzYiZGs53-mXK4_FCOnZG4q4jJtcxW/view?usp=sharing. A full EIS would provide detail to answer my questions about VISSIM and in my slide show. The supplemental environmental assessment has nothing in writing that housing can be built on the lid of a freeway or that humans could endure that for any length of time. If the project exceeds budgets how will environmental protection be preserved or cut? The SEA and the climate change supplement have no detail about how the environmental factors will fare if funding is lost or budgets are exceeded. I have provided adequate evidence as to why the 2022 SEA and subordinate supplements are incomplete and have not addressed critical and major environmental concerns. I demand ODOT and the FHA produce a full Environmental Impact Statement as this is the intent of the lawmakers of the Federal NEPA law. Related document is a slide show with evidence. In the slides I ask these questions and provide picture and video evidence as to why we need a full EIS. https://docs. google. com/presentation/d/129EGJUO4EP1FKci9DZENm2Zo5N1QBV9-xAlM3fl6yRw/edit?usp=sharingURL above to my slides and evidence |
| 7457 | Robert | Walker | It is a major project with many moving parts and largely unknown consequences. Most perniciously, a failure to fully isolate the full environmental impacts should be the minimum available for citizens before such a mass investment in a freeway future is undertaken. |
| 7458 | Sam | Peters | I demand ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed arose Quarter Freeway Expansion because this freeway will relieve traffic congestion and contribute to environmental pollution. This project also displaces a middle school that serves a historically Black neighborhood. |
| 7459 | Tegan | Valo | For over 10 years, B-Line Urban Delivery has been a living example of how goods can be moved through a city in a sustainable manner. We ve seen first-hand how developments in Portland s safe biking infrastructure have improved our ability to move goods via our electric freight tricycles. Most recently we ve seen this with the opening of the Blumenauer Bridge, which has given us a new route into North Portland that shaves valuable minutes off of multiple delivery routes every day. Infrastructure improvements have allowed us to grow over the years, putting more trikes on the road and allowing us to do more work that would otherwise be done in vans and trucks that create congestion and pollution in the urban core. As a small business that is focused on building a more sustainable logistics model for Portland and beyond, we feel it is imperative to oppose the expansion of automotive infrastructure that, in the end, only preserves the broken status quo. We stand as proof that radical departures from this status quo can lead to not only viable business ventures, but measurable benefits to our community as well. In 2021 alone, our services prevented over 500,000lbs of C02 from entering the atmosphere, and avoided 320,000 miles that would have been traveled by traditional delivery vehicles. Furthermore, we ve achieved these outcomes while creating dozens of green-collar jobs and helping hundreds of small food producers get off the ground and grow their businesses. B-Line has learned first-hand the benefits of thinking outside the standard playbook when it comes to transportation; now we hope that ODOT will do the same by producing a full Environmental Impact Statement that considers alternatives to the construction of new freeway lanes. Opposing new freeway lanes is not to say that we don t understand the essential nature of trucking for our economy; we work with truckers every day to load goods in and out of our warehouse and value those relationships. However, we believe that the best way to improve the efficiency of trucks (and all vehicles) through the I-5 corridor is not to spend $1. 4 billion on expanding freeway lanes, auxiliary or otherwise. Constructing new lanes has been well-documented to gradually increase vehicle miles traveled by inducing more demand for driving, which only contributes further to climate change and the epidemic of traffic fatalities that our community faces. We should be focused on reducing congestion by developing smart improvements to our pedestrian, cycling, and public transit systems to encourage more movement throughout the city without the need to drive. In particular we have concerns with the relocation of the I-5 off-ramp to N Williams and NE Wheeler Avenue. The proposed relocation would dramatically increase the danger to pedestrians and cyclists as they merge onto N Williams. If Portland believes in its vision zero goals, it should not ask those who walk and roll to negotiate both the existing on-ramp at this location in addition to a new off-ramp that features a hairpin turn off of a stretch of freeway that consistently sees automotive speeds of 70 mph and higher. The highway cover, and all improvements to multimodal transit above the freeway, can and should be implemented without the construction of additional auxiliary lanes on I-5. We support these investments for the Albina neighborhood which can help reconnect a community that has already been displaced by a freeway once before in our city s history. The money that would go to expanding I-5 would be much better suited to projects that improve surface streets in Albina and other corridors in need of safety and livability improvements, such as SE Powell and SW Barbur Boulevard. How much more frequent, affordable, and complete could we make our transit system with $1. 4 billion? How many miles of sidewalks and bike lanes could we build or improve? How much more could we do to create a community that doesn t require its citizens to carry two tons of steel with them for every errand they do? It s time for us to invest in the health and safety of all community members, embrace alternative modes of transportation, and reject the status quo of auto-centric development. Our leaders need to stand up to the dual crises of traffic fatalities and climate change. B-Line has formed countless connections with the many small businesses and local food producers for whom we store and distribute goods. We believe in living our values to create strong, livable, interconnected communities, and the expansion of a freeway directly through a historically marginalized neighborhood is counter to these values and our daily efforts. We recommend The City of Portland and ODOT should oppose the proposed I-5 expansion, conduct a full Environmental Impact Study, and direct transportation funding towards infrastructure that will increase access, mobility and equity in an effort to make our communities more sustainable and resilient. |
| 7460 | Daniel | Kapsch | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: With climate change and extremes ever more prevalent, we need a proper assessment of the environmental impacts of this freeway expansion project. To skip this step seems counterintuitive to how we need to proceed with projects such as this. |
| 7461 | Todd | Henion | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Endless evidence show more lanes = more cars. We do not want more cars. Yes, I find it that simple. Please solve our transportation not the car problem |
| 7462 | Maria | Opie | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need to keep our community as livable as possible. What is more important - increasing the number of cars and trucks that roll through and muck up our neighborhood or the people who live in the neighborhood? Give us a break ODOT! Stop paving over paradise! Try something different. Move into the future smartly instead of the same old, same old. |
| 7463 | Keith | Jones | Hello,Attached below are comments submitted on behalf of Friends of Green Loop. Copying interested parties for reference. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you,KeithKeith Jones | Executive Director | [Redacted] | Friends of Green Loop <http://www. pdxgreenloop. org> January 2, 2023Project Managerc/o I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project888 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 600Portland, OR 97204RE: The 2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment Public Comment PeriodTo the Project Manager,Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment(SEA) for the Hybrid Option 3 design concept. We appreciate the opportunity to constructivelycontribute to an infrastructure project that will improve a critical series of connections in the N/NE portion of Portland s Central City for generations to come. Decisions made now will have farreachingimpacts on the lives and behaviors of thousands of residents, workers and visitors inthis part of the larger Albina, Rose Quarter and Lloyd community. While we support keyelements of the Hybrid Option 3 design concept, especially the expanded freeway coversextending north from Weidler, we do not support the project as currently proposed. Friends of Green Loop is a non-profit community organization committed to building the GreenLoop a transformative 6-mile linear park linking the Central City s signature destinations,attractions and places. Friends of Green Loop executes its work according to a three-leggedstool of key values including Placemaking, Accessibility & Inclusion and EconomicDevelopment. The Hybrid Option 3 design concept presents a unique opportunity toincorporate a new connection for the Green Loop across the prominent barrier of the I-5Freeway in N/NE Portland. Friends of Green Loop recognizes and appreciates the community engagement processundertaken by the Independent Covers Assessment (ICA) group roughly from 2020-2021 thatresulted in the Hybrid Option 3 design concept. We respect the work of the ICA and support thegoals of improving health outcomes, reconnecting the community and facilitatingintergenerational wealth for the Black community in the Albina neighborhood of Portland. Wefully understand and support the restorative justice objectives with this freeway project and theopportunities to create larger, multi-functional freeway covers that could potentially supportnew buildings. The purpose and need for the project at the Broadway/Weidler interchange recognizes that: The complexity of the configuration of the I-5 Broadway/Weidler interchange and congestionmake it a difficult area to navigate for vehicles (including transit vehicles), cyclists, andpedestrians, affecting access to and from I-5 as well as to and from local streets. The high volumes of traffic on I-5 and Broadway/Weidler in this area contribute to congestionand safety issues (for all modes) at the interchange ramps, the Broadway and Weidlerovercrossings of I-5, and on local streets in the vicinity of the interchange. The purpose and need for the project (at Broadway/Weidler) describes an interchange area thatis complex and presents numerous safety issues for all modes. Pedestrians, joggers, rollers andriders are especially vulnerable due to multiple factors: the many crossing movements of motorvehicles going to and from the freeway, high volumes and speeds on B/W, and the interaction ofmultiple one-way streets with drivers only looking one direction for oncoming traffic. We appreciate that the Green Loop was discussed during the ICA process and are excited thatits implementation has been considered for the next steps of work. That being said, we do notsupport the project with the Green Loop as included with the Hybrid Option 3 design concept. Our concerns/comments can be grouped into the following categories:1. Consistency with Adopted City Policy2. Changes from Previous Environmental Assessment3. Green Loop Alignment on Broadway/Weidler4. Potential Additional Space RequirementsEach area of concern is described in more detail below. 1. CONSISTENCY WITH ADOPTED CITY POLICYThe project has failed to address its purpose and need. The Central City 2035 Plan, adopted inthe Spring of 2018, includes multiple documents that clearly describe the character and intentof the Green Loop. Per the documents, the vision for the Green Loop is to create a six-milelinear park that links Central City places, destinations and attractions in a way that iscomfortable for walking, jogging, rolling or riding, for people of all ages and abilities. It is notintended to remove or replace existing active transportation infrastructure on city streets orthoroughfares, rather, it is intended to create a new alternative pathway that supports activityand growth in all parts of the Central City. Adopted Central City 2035 documents also clearly describe the preferred east-west alignmentfor the Green Loop in this segment. Consistent with its envisioned quieter, park-like character,the Green Loop is shown on streets that run parallel (and nearby) to existing busier arterials andmain streets. Maps incorporated in Volume 5B Implementation the Green Loop as well asnumerous diagrams from Volume 1 Goals and Policies identify NE Clackamas/N Ramsay as thepreferred east-west route through the Albina/Lloyd/Rose Quarter segment. Clackamas and Ramsay make sense as the Green Loop for multiple reasons. First, Clackamas is alow-volume, local street that runs through the large Central Lloyd redevelopment area whichcould one day accommodate thousands of new housing units and jobs. Second, Clackamascurrently has traffic signals at another high-volume-and-speeds couplet, the north-south MartinLuther King Jr. /Grand pair of streets. On the other side of the freeway, Ramsay runs south of, and parallel to, B/W and functions as acritical event management space due to its relatively low traffic volumes. A Green Loopalignment on Ramsay would connect walkers, joggers, rollers and riders more directly to events,while also putting more eyes on the large Veterans Memorial Coliseum plaza, a large andunderutilized public open space at the center of the campus. Hybrid Option 3 proposes to locate the Green Loop on the busy Broadway/Weidler couplet,which is in direct conflict with adopted city policy. 2. CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTThe project has failed to address its purpose and need. One of the most notable changes of theHybrid Option 3 design concept from the previous Build alternative and EA is the relocation ofthe I-5 SB ramp terminal from N Vancouver/Broadway to the Ramsay/Wheeler/Williamsintersection. The relocation of this ramp terminal to this intersection places it just north of, andadjacent to, the existing I-5 SB on ramp terminal. This proposed ramp relocation hasdramatically reduced the amount of space available for new connections like the previouslyproposedClackamas Crossing pedestrian/bicycle bridge (CCB) that would actually improvepedestrian and bicycle safety in the interchange area. As a result, the Hybrid Option 3 design concept no longer includes the Clackamas Crossingpedestrian/bicycle bridge. The CCB restored one of the six community connections lost betweenBroadway and Irving when the freeway was built in the late 1960s. It offered a new low-stressconnection across the freeway similar to the recently-opened Earl Blumenauer Bridge salternative to the Martin Luther King Jr. /Grand Avenue couplet across the I-84 Freeway. The CCBconnection would be accessed by the low-volume streets of NE Clackamas and Ramsay linkingthe Green Loop running north-south along NE 7th Avenue to the Broadway Bridge across theWillamette River. Many of the supporting technical reports supporting the SEA reference how Hybrid Option 3 isaffecting access in the area according to a variety of different potential routes. Most of thereferences note that the SEA does not improve the existing access conditions for pedestrians,bicyclists or other active transportation users as the CCB is no longer proposed as a part of theproject. 3. GREEN LOOP ALIGNMENT ON BROADWAY/WEIDLERThe project has failed to address its purpose and need. By design and as previously described,the preferred alignment of the Green Loop is along quieter, low-volume streets that wouldappeal to a broader range of Sunday Parkways types of people. The Green Loop will offer analternative to faster-moving, and generally one-way, commuter-oriented bike lanes on thebusier corridors. While we appreciate that the Green Loop was discussed as part of the ICAeffort that developed the Hybrid Option 3 concept, we are opposed to the proposal to locatethe Green Loop on the Broadway/Weidler couplet. The Broadway/Weidler couplet (B/W) is among the Central City s busiest traffic corridors,featuring some 60,000 motor vehicles a day across the two streets. Per the Central City 2035Plan, the Green Loop s preferred alignment is the low-volume street of NE Clackamas to thesouth which, in comparison, features some 600 motor vehicles a day. In addition, B/W s postedmaximum vehicle speed limit is 30mph, while on Clackamas which is classified as a local accessstreet, the posted maximum speed is 20mph or less. A segment of the Green Loop on the highvolumeand velocity B/W would be dramatically inconsistent with the rest of the alignment thatis planned for much quieter streets like SE 6th Avenue, SW 9th/Park Avenue West or NW ParkAvenue. As B/W is a two-street couplet corridor, a Green Loop alignment using both streets would lackthe easy intuition (and subsequent comfort) of a 2-way design on a single, low-volume street,consistent with the rest of the 6-mile alignment. The Hybrid Option 3 design conceptincorporates I-5 Freeway ramp terminals at the intersections of Broadway/Williams, and at theintersections of Weidler with both Williams and Victoria along this segment of B/W. There is noother segment of the Green Loop that requires crossing multiple freeway ramp terminals atgradealong a high-volume couplet like B/W. 4. POTENTIAL ADDITIONAL SPACE REQUIREMENTSThe project has failed to address its purpose and need. Locating the Green Loop on the busyBroadway/Weidler couplet presents spatial challenges. B/W are one of the Central City s busiesttraffic corridors serving thousands of motor vehicles every day. In addition, B/W already includemultimodal transportation facilities including Portland Streetcar, bus lines and bike lanes. Broadway, which is the historic main street, is wider at some 70 feet than Weidler, which wasadded later to form the couplet pair and is roughly 60 feet wide. The incorporation of the Green Loop on the two streets would require the repurposing ofexisting street space or functions (travel lanes, on-street parking, etc. or combinations thereof). This additional width would contribute to expanded pedestrian and rolling areas for wide, safespaces for wheels like scooters, roller skates or bicycles and a buffer strip that couldaccommodate trees. The additional space would effectively widen the sidewalk space on oneside of each street (Broadway and Weidler) from 15 feet to something more like 25, althoughthe specific design is yet to be determined. The width would be necessary due to the highvehicle volumes and speeds on both streets and the physical space required to safely andeffectively separate users from the traffic. If it is undesirable or infeasible to repurpose existing space in the public right-of-way, additionalarea from adjacent private properties would be necessary to create the comfort consistent withthe Green Loop. Impacts to private properties along B/W could affect their redevelopmentoptions and economic potential for the community. The SEA is not clear on what the route to the Broadway Bridge would be for the Green Loopfrom NE 7th Avenue. It appears that the project proposes a route from 7th Avenue toClackamas, up NE 2nd to B/W, through the interchange area and onto the Broadway Bridge. Thisalignment could affect up to 9 blocks or 18 frontages along the corridor with the potentialimpacts described above. Adopted alignments calling for Clackamas or Ramsay to the BroadwayBridge would impact only one block (and possibly none) of the B/W corridor. The SEA s proposal to align the Green Loop on B/W adds complexity and uncertainty to what isalready a complex and unsafe area for pedestrians and bicyclists. The previous EA proposed theClackamas Crossing Bridge and proposed a new, intuitive and attractive new connection acrossthe freeway and interchange area in a location that desperately needs one. Finally, the SEA itself demonstrates how it is not addressing the project s purpose and need. Thelanguage of the SEA, as well as that of its supporting technical reports, clearly indicate thenegative impacts for pedestrians, joggers, rollers and bicyclists by removing the ClackamasCrossing pedestrian/bicycle bridge from the project. A project of this scope and scale, one thatwill build new infrastructure affecting the community for generations to come, must do betterthan the status quo or the No-Build Alternative. Below is just one excerpt from page 47 of the Active Transportation Supplemental TechnicalReport dated September 2022: Cumulative ImpactsMajor design changes in the Revised Build Alternative such as the omission of the ClackamasBicycle and Pedestrian Bridge and the implementation of the I-5 southbound offramp at NWilliams Avenue have changed route-based conditions compared to the Build and No-BuildAlternatives. As a whole, route directness in the API is would be similar to the No-BuildAlternative but worse than the Build Alternative without the Clackamas Bridge. (emphasisadded)We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this significant project for the city, region andmost importantly, the local community. We appreciate that the Green Loop was consideredduring the ICA process and planned with the Hybrid Option 3 concept. That being said, we donot support the Hybrid Option 3 design concept as currently proposed, as it and the SEA failto meet key pedestrian and bicycle safety objectives of the project s purpose and need. Weare hopeful that previously studied, tested and evaluated elements of the previous EA mostnotably the Clackamas Crossing Bridge will be reconsidered and re-incorporated within theproject moving forward. We would be happy to work with the project team to help answer any questions pertaining tothe Green Loop s design character, its history or alignment. Please feel free to reach out withany thoughts or questions. Sincerely,Keith M. Jones,Executive DirectorFriends of Green Loop |
| 7464 | Samantha | Hughes | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: How we use our resources speaks to our values. We want a healthy Oregon that has a strong future. A healthy Oregon is an Oregon built for the people who live here, not for the cars driving about only to be parked here. Please conduct an environmental survey. Consider the evidence that widening freeways doesn't reduce congestion or emissions. Consider the alternative modes of transportation that can serve everyone, instead of catering first and foremost to motorists. Build a liveable future instead of building counterproductive infrastructure. Thank you. |
| 7465 | Quincy | Brown | "Hello, my name is Quincy Brown of We All Rise Consulting and I have a question about the public comment that closes tomorrow January 4th. My colleague and I were hoping to make an alternative collection comment, and we wanted to understand If we had, until the end of the day, that would be at 11:59, at 4, on January 4, or if it was 5 PM. Please call me back. My work phone number is [Redacted] |
| 7466 | Alex | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Freeways do not belong in the center of cities. Certainly existing ones do not deserve more lanes. We can't meet our current maintenance bill and our infrastructure is crumbling. We have to make due on our promises and maintain what we have. | |
| 7467 | Nora | Stern | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I do not support expansion of the I5 corridor through Portland. We cannot afford to increase our carbon emissions in this time of climate crisis. We need to expand public transportation to the full extent possible, and cap the freeways to minimize pollution. |
| 7468 | Jeremy | Salmon | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Living in NE Portland for the past 18 years has made me sensitive to air pollution and traffic concerns in this area. A full EIS needs to be performed for this expansion, and putting lids over the lanes would be a better alternative to adding yet more roadway. |
| 7469 | Bobbee | Murr | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This freeway, if built, will increase GG rather than decrease vehicular traffic. Most drivers drive ICE-powered vehicles. Its existence will violate the Oregon State's and Portland's declared GG reduction plan. ________________________________Time: January 3, 2023 at 8:50 am |
| 7470 | Doug | Allen | Attached please find comments of AORTA-Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates, on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the I-5/Rose Quarter project. Also attached is a copy of our 2012 letter to the N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which we reference in our comments. Sincerely,Douglas R. AllenAORTA Vice President, Portland RegionAORTA-Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocateswww. AORTArail. orgJanuary 3, 2023Project Managerc/o I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement ProjectPortland, OR 97204SUBJECT: Supplemental EA public comment period AORTA-Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates, is an Oregon non-profit withstatewide membership. Throughout the development of this project, we have repeatedly submitted testimony and comments. In June of 2012, we submitted a letter to the N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee, asking that the freeway not be widened, recommending instead that a north-south transit alternative be considered. That letter is attached. Despite claims that a large number of alternatives were considered in the period leadingup to finalization of the N/NE Quadrant Plan, transit and tolling-only alternatives were not considered, even though such alternatives have the greatest potential for reducing VMT, GHG emissions, and other pollutants, producing significant environmental benefitscompared with the chosen build alternative We submitted comments on the February 2019 EA for this project, once again pointingout that the EA failed to consider transit alternatives, which should include priority busservice on the freeway as well as a parallel extension of the Yellow light rail line east ofthe Willamette River to the Tilikum Crossing, and extension of the Yellow Line north toHayden Island for better connection with C-Tran service. These alternatives to I-5expansion have still not been considered in the Supplemental EA. We noted that the February 2019 EA did not properly consider the cumulative impacts ofconstruction projects on I-5 and connecting freeway segments, such as the East Marquam Interchange Ramps Project, which built additional lanes on I-5 between the Marquam Bridge and I-84. This and other defects in the February 2019 EA have still not been properly addressed in either the November 2020 Revised EA or the Supplemental EA. We subsequently testified to the Oregon Transportation Commission in January 2020,when they were considering whether to direct ODOT to do an EIS or not. Again, we asked for a full EIS with proper scoping of alternatives, to include those with less impact on the environment. It is clear now that pricing (tolling) is an integral part of the project. HB 3055 (2021)spreads the money originally earmarked for this project by HB 2017 (2017) to severalprojects, all of which are under-funded, but sets up a system of short-term borrowingalong with toll-backed bonds to fund these projects. All of these projects, along with theassociated tolling, need to be analyzed in a single EIS that includes proper scoping toconsider transit and/or no-roadway-expansion alternatives. Greenhouse gas emissions are a cumulative, ongoing impact of both the build and nobuild options. A congestion-pricing alternative for the region has the potential overmultiple years of vastly reducing the GHG emissions of the transportation sector. GHGreductions are required in Oregon to meet environmental goals The regional congestion-pricing EIS needs to consider all of the freeways in the Portlandregion, and consider funding increased transit service. The opportunity cost of divertingtoll revenue to unnecessary construction should be evaluated. Consultants to ODOT's Value Pricing Policy Advisory Committee in 2018 indicated thatif congestion pricing were implemented, the Rose Quarter project would not be needed,because pricing would provide the capacity equivalent of an additional travel lane. The November 2020 Revised EA, which is being supplemented, responds, in Appendix I,to comments submitted for the original February 2019 EA: https://www. i5rosequarter. org/pdfs/fonsi/Appendix%20I%20Final%20CSR. pdfSection "3. 1. 2 Project Alternatives" starting on page 9 (page 15/600 of the pdf), responds to comments about the inadequate analysis of alternatives. The response essentially blames the original 2012 process for coming up with the then-current plan (which has subsequently been modified). That process, and the steps that led up to it, were not a NEPA process. ODOT had a plan, and the City of Portland attempted to improve that plan. ODOT threatened the area around the project with development restrictions if the City didn't go along. No proper scoping of alternatives occurred at that time. Now, ODOT is saying that because they did an EA, and found no significant differencein the long run between the project and no-build, they don't have to consider any otheralternatives. They are using the EA process to avoid doing an EIS and are avoiding taking the hard look at alternatives required by NEPA. But the single new alternative covered by the Revised EA is still insufficient. Sincerely, Douglas R. Allen AORTA Vice President, Portland Region |
| 7471 | Beth | Winter | I'm concerned that the impacts of this project, 1-5 & I-205 tolling and the Interstate Bridge replacement all happening essentially at the same time are not able to be fully addressed in an EA and this project should move forward with full draft and final environmental impact statements to fully capture the needs, wants, expectations and future impacts of this project. |
| 7472 | Yashar | Vasef | I live two blocks from the interstate and am appalled that this project is bypassing a full environmental review and that you essentially forced out the initial community advisory body to mass resignations due to your unwillingness to be responsive to real concerns from the community. Your proposal will literally further poison the air that I and my neighbors breathe. There is no real evidence this project will improve congestion based on the foundlings from a firm ODOT contracted (as reported by Portland Mercury). Any expansion on I5 should be allocated to train or bus only routes. Period. This is shameful, and I'm embarrassed this is the best the state of Oregon and ODOT has come up with. As a former refugee, I remind you that climate change is real and the impacts of this proposal will impact not just my neighbors but people around the world. You should be working to REDUCE auto-dependency and not make it more convenient. I will challenge this project in any capacity that I can. ODOT has positioned itself as a major barrier to meaningful climate action from government. There will be consequences. |
| 7475 | Rob | Galanakis | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I don't understand why ODOT is trying to override the desire of residents by trying to force through a freeway expansion. We don't want this. (I mean, we all want the things ODOT says the expansion would achieve, but it's very easy to verify the expansion won't achieve those things by looking at any history- ODOT's public surveys have been dishonest)The safety issues here pale in comparison to what exists off the freeway, with dozens pedestrians and cyclists being hurt and killed. If you want to invest in safety, invest in that. If the problem is traffic, we all know this expansion will not help. Expansions do not reduce traffic. Only *increasing* the cost of driving higher reduces traffic, or *reducing* the reasons to travel to a destination. If there is congestion during commutes, toll and improve other options (no Portland resident should be driving into downtown Portland). Toll to reduce all other congestion too. This expansion just adds capacity, which will get quickly overwhelmed by induced demand and have the same result as every other freeway expansion- debt and environmental destruction. If equity is the concern, just install the freeway caps without widening the freeway, and with minimal surface street disruption. There are also tremendous concerns these caps are even viable, since development on the caps will be extremely expensive- they may sit empty for decades. We should be removing, not expanding freeways. This expansion saddles our children with debt, pollution, and a further broken climate. All for what? What do I tell my kids they get out of this? 30 seconds reduced travel time if they want to drive across town? |
| 7476 | Eliot | Rose | Hello:Please find attached Metro's comments on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the I5 Rose Quarter Project. Thank you,Eliot Rose (he/him/his)Transit, Technology and Capital ProjectsMetro's offices are closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Email is the best way to reach me. Metro600 NE Grand Ave. Portland, OR 97232-2736503-797-1825www. oregonmetro. gov<http://www. oregonmetro. gov/> Metro | Making a great placeJanuary 3, 2023Megan ChannellProject Director, Rose QuarterOregon Department of Transportation355 Capitol Street NE, MS 11Salem, OR, 97301-3871 USAmegan. channell@odot. oregon. govDear Ms. Channell:Thank you for providing Metro with the Administrative Draft of the SupplementalEnvironmental Assessment (EA) for the Interstate 5 Rose Quarter project (I5RQ) for review. Asthe metropolitan planning organization in the Portland region, Metro is responsible forcoordinating transportation plans, projects, and funds in the region, and serves as aparticipating agency on I5RQ. We are pleased to see the Supplemental EA s finding that theproject continues to deliver the intended safety and operational benefits on Interstate 5, evenwith the addition of an expanded highway cover and corresponding changes to the I-5 mainlinethat will help to restore justice to the residents of Albina, formerly the heart of Portland s Blackcommunity. This new cover design, which has broad support from the I5RQ Historic AlbinaAdvisory Board, partner transportation agencies, and Oregon s governor will reconnect partof the street grid that made Albina a vibrant and walkable neighborhood, create new highqualitydevelopment space for businesses and community services, and add much-neededbicycle, pedestrian and transit facilities. Metro is pleased to be a partner on this project that willreconnect communities in the heart of Portland, and further our regional goals on equity andinclusion. The Supplemental EA arrives at a transformative moment for our region. It is one of severalmajor transportation projects that are moving forward as the severity and impacts of climatechange are becoming increasingly clear. The State of Oregon has adopted policies that placenew emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT)through transportation planning and project development. It also approved the use ofcongestion pricing on major roadways, giving the region an important tool to achieve thesereductions. We offer the following comments to help ensure that I5RQ proceeds in a way that iswell-coordinated with other important projects and that proactively supports climate action. ODOT s approach to the EA is driven by federal regulations and policies. As such, the Climatesection of the Supplemental EA focuses on federal climate policies when describing the relevantregulatory framework. Its findings are consistent with the original EA s finding, which hasconfirmed by an expert review panel, that I5RQ results in no significant climate impacts whenviewed through this regulatory framework. At the same time, recent analyses of Oregon s GHGemissions have concluded transportation agencies need to significantly reduce VMT, in additionto implementing federal and state clean vehicle and fuel programs, for the state to meet itsclimate goals. Metro formally adopted a Climate Smart Strategy in 2014 that calls for thereduction of GHG from the transportation sector. The State of Oregon also adopted the Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities (CFEC) rulemaking. These policies are not part of theregulatory framework described in the Climate section of the Supplemental EA, but they willnonetheless shape how both the I5RQ project and the 2023 update to the RegionalTransportation Plan (RTP) update addresses Oregon s climate goals. As I5RQ and the 2023Regional Transportation Plan update progress in tandem, we encourage ODOT to work withMetro and other transportation agencies in the Portland region to implement these importantclimate policies. The Portland Metro area is working together to implement congestion pricing with theleadership of ODOT through the Regional Mobility Pricing Project (RMPP). The RMPP creates amajor opportunity to manage transportation demand in the region in a way that both generatesrevenues and reduces demand from single-occupancy vehicles. We understand that ODOT plansto conduct separate environmental review processes for RMPP. Given this, we appreciate theinclusion of Appendix D of the Traffic section, which includes a sensitivity analysis of howpricing and the I5RQ project could impact traffic volumes and travel speeds. Thoughinformational and preliminary, this appendix contains encouraging findings, including that theRMPP has the potential to significantly lower travel demand on I5RQ below what is anticipatedin the EA, and that when implemented together the RMPP and I5RQ significantly reduce delayin the project area. We request that ODOT clarify how the impact of pricing on demand, travelspeeds, as well as other outcomes, will be further analyzed, and how the results of this analysiswill inform the design of I5RQ as the project progresses. We look forward to continuing to engage with ODOT on this important project. Sincerely,Margi BradwayDeputy DirectorPlanning, Development and Research |
| 7477 | Susan | Bladholm | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Come on, ODOT, it s time to address our climate crisis with integrity and urgency. Integrity is listed as your top value. You have mega projects on the drawing board, and I ask you to take a new look at these projects and be honest about how they will impact air quality and induce more car capacity. Do the EIS- it's a best practice. While your credibility and legacy are at stake, our collective health and safety for many generations to come is at stake as well. Please don t let your legacy be that of continuing to pollute our air. Safety is your second listed value; please live up to it. As you are aware, 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions are caused by transportation and you have the opportunity to invest in new and active transit to get cars off the roadways to help with traffic congestion and free up roadways for freight mobility. Excellence is one of your values- how are you driving excellence through innovation?I am advocating for a new green mode of transit steeped in social and environmental equity while advancing climate resilience, supporting disadvantaged communities, and bringing innovation to our region. Equity is also listed as one of your values. Frog Ferry can stand up a ferry service within two years on the Willamette River from the Cathedral Park dock to the RiverPlace dock in downtown Portland. Your mission statement is to provide a safe and reliable multimodal transportation system that connects people and helps Oregon s communities and economy thrive. Please live up to that promise and your values. Thank you. |
| 7478 | Annabel | Cantor | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am not interested in governmental funds going to support a slapdash project whose full impacts have not been properly considered. A full EIS is necessary, especially because this government likes to talk the talk about environmentalism, but that seems to go out the window when a project like this is on the table. People deserve more information about this project. |
| 7479 | Rev. Daniel | T. Rose | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Greetings, my name is Daniel Rose, I'm currently serving as the Pastor of the Community of Christ congregation here in Portland OR. It's my firm belief that as a faith leader, it is within my role and capacity to encourage the people in our community to seek the welfare of the planet. I believe that our car-centric system of transportation is terrible for two main reasons; it does not serve the poorest members of our community (having and maintaining a car is expensive), and secondly cars are indefensibly terrible for our planet. We shouldn't be taking any actions that encourage MORE cars on the road, and subsequently increasing the rate at which climate catastrophe will hit our beloved city. Creation is groaning under our feet. Can you not hear it? We cannot afford to continue down the path we are currently treading. I am formally voicing my objection to the freeway expansion and for a FULL environmental impact statement to be done. Thank you for your time and consideration. Rev. Daniel T. Rose |
| 7480 | Alison | Lucas | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a mom who bikes over the N Portland I-5 corridor with my kids to get them to school. Crossing over the highway, no matter where we do it, is a pinch point and one of the most challenging parts of our ride. We and all our neighbors deserve good air quality, fewer auto lanes going through our neighborhoods, safer bike routes, and a full EIS for ODOT's project. This ODOT project will increase emissions where we live, work, study, and play. Our community should be investing in alternative and carbon free modes of transport, not more highway lanes. |
| 7481 | Kiel | Johnson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: BikeLoud PDX strongly demands that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter project if the project includes widening the footprint of the freeway. We are concerned that a larger freeway will make riding a bicycle worse in Portland and result in a decrease in the number of people riding bicycles in Portland. This would result in more congestion and demand for car space around the region. Our current freeway system is one of the main obstacles for a comfortable and connected bicycle network. We are especially concerned about the latest proposed designs which would off ramp cars onto the Williams corridor. This is the most important street for connecting our bicycle network to NE and N Portland. Those designs would make riding a bike from NE and N Portland more dangerous. We ask ODOT to engage with the bicycling community to find solutions that will make it easier to ride a bicycle for transportation in Portland. Conducting an Environmental Impact Statement is an important part of that engagement. -Kiel JohnsonChair BikeLoud PDX |
| 7482 | Michael | Parkhurst | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The RQ expansion will not solve the problems it purports to address, and is a shamefully colossal and obtuse waste of funds that could be better spent to solve real transportation problems in the Metro area. Instead of creating slightly more freeway capacity - which we KNOW will only attract enough additional traffic to fill that capacity and put us right back at the same level of congestion we're experiencing now! - please focus on climate-smart solutions to give Portlanders genuinely viable transportation choices besides traveling alone by car. And toll the highways already! We know from other cities' experiences that that will do far more to tame traffic than tearing up an already-violated Lower Albina neighborhood. |
| 7483 | Piper | Smith | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I believe adding more lanes to 1-5, with a euphemism or not, is in fundamental opposition to fighting climate change. So many studies have shown that additional lanes lead to additional traffic, NOT less idling. It's long past time to move beyond car dependence and ever-widening roads. Oregon should lead the way. |
| 7484 | David | G | I am concerned that adding lanes, even auxillary lanes, will induce demand and create faster/less safe traffic and ultimately increase greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution associated with motor vehicles. I think slower speeds within City limits is acceptable, and safety could be improved by removing ramps entirely. I do not support widening I-5 through the Rose Quarter. I support constructing a buildable cap over I-5. Restoring the Right-of-Way grid and developing new businesses and residences above the freeway is a laudable goal, but the details are critically important. Complete street urban design principals must be prioritized over efficiency of traffic movements. On and off ramps should be one lane only, and should join the grid at 90-degree angles, no sliplanes! Motor vehicle lanes should be as narrow as possible 10'-11' max. Street corner curb radii should be as small as possible 20'-25'. Bike networks should be safe, simple and direct with no weaving of highway or local traffic. Pedestrian infrastructure must be prioritized: wide sidewalks, short crossing distances (use curb extensions where possible), low, pedestrian-scale lighting, and street trees. In areas not suspended over the freeway, planting strips between the sidewalk and the roadway should be 6' wide minimum and be planted with large, drought-tolerant/climate-adapted species such as Cork Oak. Planting strips on structure over the highway will need to be 36-48" deep minimum and 4'-6' wide. Trees should be medium-sized or smaller, and a permanent irrigation system must included, paid for in perpetuity by tolls and maintained by ODOT. |
| 7486 | Michael | Monroe-Loop | I suspect, unfortunately, this Supplemental Environmental Assessment is a foregone conclusion. Regardless, I would like to state my preference for the No-Build Alternative. There is no doubt that the current Rose Quarter interstate design is less than ideal. Unfortunately, as evidenced by recent court proceedings, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been less than transparent with regards to the cost of the project as well as the weighing of public feedback, especially criticism of the project. ODOT seems remarkably dismissive, despite ample evidence, of acknowledged realities such as induced demand, tolling as a viable means of reducing congestion, as well as the simple inefficiencies of freeway construction whether in land lost to right of way, capital cost to construct such a project, or the wasteful subsidies needed for maintenance on the finished product. To that last point, our national freeway system no longer pays for itself in maintenance alone, yet ODOT is proposing a project that is billed at one billion dollars1 conservatively just in capital cost to redesign less than two miles of freeway. That is an inefficient use of public funds spent on an inefficient form of transportation. I am doubtful the solution as presented will resolve the wider transportation issues facing the region, let alone the modest aims and issues identified within the scope of the project itself. I could be supportive of such a project if it included a stated and accountable pledge by ODOT to pare down highway funding and move forward with a transition to passenger and commuter rail projects throughout the state such as making the Oregon Passenger Rail Corridor Investment project a funding priority. It should be telling that other states have already identified commuter passenger rail as a long term and viable transportation solution for their major metropolitan statistical areas (MSA s) such as Washington (Sounder), Utah (Front Runner), New Mexico (Rail Runner), Virginia (Virginia Railway Express) and Illinois (Metra). Vancouver BC also has commuter passenger rail (West Coast Express). Portland has the Westside Express Service however it is a stand-alone system and due to the equipment selected, cannot be integrated into the wider Amtrak passenger network without extensive platform redesigns and different Amtrak equipment across that whole network an unrealistic solution and one that effectively prevents the expansion of WES in the region. Commuter rail should run reliably between Portland and Salem at a minimum serving multiple smaller communities in-between. With proper vision, state involvement and partnership with local railroads, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and Genesee & Wyoming s Portland & Western, there already exists extensive infrastructure to build upon if the state would just fund such a project. Unfortunately, this project demonstrates ODOT s lack of a comprehensive vision and worst that it is trapped in a box a victim of the highway industrial complex. Build more freeways, put more cars on the freeways, build more freeways, spending ever greater sums of money to keep those highways and freeways operable to the point no other options can be afforded. ODOT needs to be planning ahead and diversifying our regional transportation options. Other states are decades ahead of Oregon in transportation planning. Oregon needs to catch up. The Rose Quarter project alone is not the way to do it. 1. The Oregonian and Willamette Week |
| 7488 | Steven | Morris | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Shouldn't all projects like this require an EIS? A real one? I Work in a different field of civil engineering and construction but the decision making process is just as important there, and decisions require the fullest context and breadth of relevant information possible in order to execute well. Not performing an EIS isn't far off from not performing checks on the seismic resilience of a building during permitting process. Sure, the project will move faster and be more expensive than it would be if we started today, but when the big one hits (and it will) who is harmed by that building collapsing? The residents. As climate change continues (and it will) who is harmed by projects such as these? The residents. By ignoring these factors, any engineer that works on these projects is in direct violation of the ASCE code of ethics that has governed a resilient civil engineering field for many years. The tenets of the code in the social section are as follows:a. first and foremost, protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public;b. enhance the quality of life for humanity;c. express professional opinions truthfully and only when founded on adequate knowledge and honest conviction;d. have zero tolerance for bribery, fraud, and corruption in all forms, and report violations to the proper authorities;e. endeavor to be of service in civic affairs;f. treat all persons with respect, dignity, and fairness, and reject all forms of discrimination and harassment;g. acknowledge the diverse historical, social, and cultural needs of the community, and incorporate these considerations in their work;h. consider the capabilities, limitations, and implications of current and emerging technologies when part of their work; andi. report misconduct to the appropriate authorities where necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public. I won't go through these point by point (though I could, engineering ethics courses are no joke when taken seriously) but by proceeding without an EIS and arguably by proceeding with the plan as it is now at all, ODOT, PBOT, and the engineers that assist on this project are not upholding their commitment to the profession's code of ethics. |
| 7489 | Carrie | Leonard | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am asking this agency to go above and beyond what is required by Federal law for a project of this magnitude. My familiarity with the NEPA process has demonstrated that it's requirements are used as excuses for why alternates to a build scenario are never part of the evaluation process, but we are at an inflection point of those who use their power and status within our government agencies to change our trajectory or just keep marching down the road that got us to this world of 2 deg C temperature change, bifurcated communities, and disparate economic opportunities. I am asking that ODOT take this opportunity to do a a full Environmental Assessment of the impacts of building axillary lanes OR invest their allocated funding in housing, alternate transportation infrastructure, or simply congestion pricing to address the congestion issues. As a climate scientist, I'd really love to see the trade space that lays out the pros and cons of the environmental and social impact of the various options. It is also time for bold, brave leaders to step up and identify policy and statute that are in the way of taking the appropriate action to solve the congestion & pricing problem before us. Rather than accepting these 150 year old statues as inviolable, I am asking those with the power, skill, and acumen to change the system to not repeat the past. Finally, I am asking that the term "auto-pedestrian conflict" be appropriately framed as the probability of increased injury and death for those outside of vehicles in the newly designed space. The people include babies, older folks, and a person out for their lunchtime run who's lives will be ended or physically and financially changed forever by design decisions that are known to increase these interactions. It is ethically irresponsible to make these interactions bland "auto-pedestrian conflicts". |
| 7490 | Lorreina | Guyett | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm begging ODOT to stop this insistence on freeway expansions. I lived in California and I've seen what happens with freeway expansions, they don't work. If you want to improve transportation, I would recommend focusing on public transportation and putting more funding into programs that will assist the most vulnerable. The fact that an EIS hasn't been done and there are still plans to expand the freeway is irresponsible and indicative of a lack of consideration to the most vulnerable people in our community. |
| 7491 | Benjamin | Fryback | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a student and up and coming transportation professional, it is absolutely paramount that the state and public know the extraordinary impacts this massive freeway expansion will have on the region. Many studies over the past century have shown that increased capacity does not reduce traffic, the area will remain congested, and emissions will increase. The corridor is already safe. One of the safest portions of highway on I-5. That said, I can't ride my bike on any one of ODOTs state highways in the Portland metro without passing white crosses and flowers memorializing those who have died due to state inaction on safety in those regions. This is a terrible way to spend almost 2 billion dollars. |
| 7492 | Yonas | Kassie | Dear Leaders!Happy New Year!I am grateful and excited to hear what changes you are brining in to our Quarter as well as Our City, County and State in General. I also appreciate for the effort to include all. However, I have small suggestion. I am speaking from the experience . I work as a social worker assisting and empowering Refugees and immigrants community, especially African. Our participation in such big projects are by far less or not at all . I am talking about over 30,000 in Oregon. More than 25,000 in Tri county , 20,000, in Portland and my estimation is more than 5 ,000 at the Rose quarter. My point is please include these underrepresented community through there CBOs . I am more than happy to work as cultural liaison for Amharic, Tigrigna and Oromo Speaking community. I have also friend who serves Swahili speaking and Somali speaking refugees and immigrants. Keep up the great work!PS : You can edit or remove if anu unnecessary or irrelevant statement. Yonas KassieExecutive DirectorEECRC503 462 9806www. eecrc. orgSent from Mail<https://go. microsoft. com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows |
| 7493 | Nick | Trapani | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a Portland resident it deeply concerns me that ODOT s proposed $1. 45 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is even being considered without an environmental assessment. Cities should not expand freeways, they should expand more pedestrian and public transit. If anything the city should bury the freeways and connect old neighborhoods together like Boston. |
| 7494 | Chris | Smith | Attached please please the primary comment letter on the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion Supplemental EA from No More Freeways and Neighbors for Clean Air. The letter references dozens of attachments that are too large to include in email. No More Freeways will deliver a disk drive to the physical mailing address for comments containing these and other files. The attachment files will also be available at the following URL for at least 60 days:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qYcrRS_4i6IV9DwjNSrEKyWWHjQijB19?usp=sharingThank you. Chris Smith Date: January 4, 2023 To: Megan Channel Keith Lynch Project Manager Division Administrator I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Federal Highway Administration888 SW 5th Ave. 530 Center Street NE Suite 600 Suite 420 Portland, OR 97204 Salem, OR 97301 i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov keith.lynch@dot.gov From: Chris Smith, No More FreewaysJoe Cortright, No More Freeways Aaron Brown, No More Freeways Mary Peveto, Neighbors for Clean Air Subject: Comment on I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental Assessment Some highway engineers have a mentality that would run an eight-lane freeway through theTaj Mahal. That is our problem. Oregon Governor Tom McCall, 1970 No More Freeways and Neighbors for Clean Air (NMF/NCA) renew our concerns expressed inrelation to the original Environmental Assessment.1 We appreciate the Independent Cover Assessment process and the strong expression ofcommunity support for the Hybrid 3 design. No More Freeways supports the intent of Hybrid 3 toreconnect a neighborhood that was destroyed by racist highway planning practices. Nonetheless we remain convinced that the proposed $1.45 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Project violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and requires further analysis in a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). We do not believe that the promise of restoration of the Albina neighborhood should come with strings - or auxiliary lanes - attached. The Environmental Assessment (EA) (2019) and the Supplemental Environmental Assessment(SEA) (2022) fail to adequately analyze or reveal the economic, social and environmental1 April 1, 2019 letter from Attorney Sean T. Malone, attached effects of the proposed freeway widening. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are proposing in the SEA and EA to makenumerous legal and policy errors. The project as currently proposed is still, at its heart, an effortto ram a 10 lane LA style freeway through the heart of Portland - regardless of more effective and less environmentally damaging options. The quote from Tom McCall remains spot on. Lids, not lanes, are what is needed here. Yet ODOT/FHWA s proposal to widen the freeway makeslids/caps more costly, and more difficult to construct. 1. Significant analysis removed from project websiteWe object that the Independent Cover Assessment (ICA) website (www.albinahighwaycovers.com) was taken down, and only a portion of the documents contained on that website were transferred to the project website. The full set of documentsshould be available as part of the SEA.22. Insufficient opportunity for public commentWe object to the public comment period occurring over a series of major holidays including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Years, limiting the ability of members ofthe public to effectively review and comment on the SEA. We requested that an extension of the comment period be provided, but none has. This appears to NFM/NCA to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the agencies to limit public participation in the SEA process, which is contrary to the intent of NEPA. 3. Width of proposed facility insufficiently disclosed ODOT/FHWA have still failed to disclose the actual width of the structure they are building, and to fully analyze the traffic volumes that would be accommodated if the wider roadway that it isproposing to build is ultimately striped for 10 or 12 lanes of traffic. As No More Freeways hastestified to the Oregon Transportation Commission, ODOT appears to have purposely concealed the true width of the roadway it proposed to build. It appears 3 to No More Freeways that ODOT is attempting to evade environmental review of what is really a 10-12 lane roadwayby claiming that it is merely including overly large "shoulders" and "egress" areas. Yet once built, those areas can (and almost certainly will at some point) be transformed into general purposelanes by simply painting new lines on the then constructed roadway. This is clearly not an accidental design choice. Many commentators have raised this issuepreviously, but the EA and SEA do not address it. ODOT is plainly planning for the possibility of 3 Cortright Letter to Oregon Transportation Commission, March 17, 2021, attached2 We have attached as many files from the ICA website as we were able to recover a 10-12 lane freeway. ODOT needs to disclose, and analyze the impacts, what it is actually proposing. That is the key reason for a NEPA analysis, to let the decision maker(s) know what the potential impacts really are of each alternative or option being considered. We raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA. 4 Thefailure/refusal to address this issue in the SEA is inexcusable. Disclosure and discussion of potential impacts, not pretending that there is no proverbial elephant in the room, is what NEPA requires. 4. Failure to examine a narrower and lower cost facility ODOT/FWHA have so far failed to examine the lessened environmental effects of building a narrower roadway. ODOT's own consultants said that the roadway could be 40 feet narrower than designed by ODOT, and still provide adequate automobile capacity. 5 Also shown in Figure 18 of the Independent Cover Assessment Cost and Construct ability Report, in the lower diagram, is an alternative cross section that could achieve over 40 feet intotal cover width potential reduction for the RQIP. This conceptual cross section is consistent with the FHWA guidance referenced above, as well as consistent with current practice forhighways with cover structures or tunnels. 5. Failure to analyze effects on Lillis-Albina Park ODOT/FHWA fail to disclose or examine the effects of its proposed sound wall on the use and enjoyment of Lillis-Albina Park. The construction of a 1000 foot long, multi-story sound wallalong the Western edge of the park would most likely impair the views of the City of Portland and the West Hills from Lillis-Albina Park. This constitutes a constructive use of Park property.ODOT/FHWA have not properly disclosed this impact, or provided the necessary opportunity for public comment, nor done the necessary analysis of impacts under Section 4(f). Nor has Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation has made a finding that such a wall would constitutean allegedly "de minimis" impact on the Park. We note that viewpoint CC-N04 from the Portland Zoning code title 33.4806 appears to beproximate to the proposed sound wall. From p.46 of the SEA:6 33.480 Scenic Resource Zone, attached5 Arup, Rose Quarter Cost and Constructability Study, 2020, attached 4 No More Freeways v. FHWA, attached There are two viewpoints located at the western edge of Lillis-Albina Park that featureI-5 in the foreground and a view of the Fremont Bridge and Forest Park through the trees, with glimpses of the Willamette River and Pearl District also visible (City ofPortland 2020). Noise Wall 2, if built, could block all or a portion of I-5 that is visible fromthese viewpoints. ODOT will work with the City of Portland through the final design process to mitigate impacts of the Revised Build Alternative on the view. The impacts described cannot be waived away. They must be analyzed in an EIS.7 We raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA.6. Inaccurate and insufficient traffic projections ODOT/FHWA have not prepared true and accurate traffic projections for the I-5 Rose Quarter project. Instead of using regional travel demand modeling, ODOT has used an out-dated, 40 year old methodology for adjusting existing traffic data. Even though the agency and its partners have undertaken multiple additional studies which show very different results, ODOT has ignored the results of those studies, and in the EA and SEA continues to rely on a TOAS report generated in 2015. ODOT has failed to base its EA and SEA environmental and traffic analysis on more recent model estimates including:● It's own 2018 analysis of value pricing, which produced different and much lowerno-build estimates of traffic for I-58● Metro's 2018 Kate regional travel demand model which is based 9 on more recent data and a more precise methodology than ODOT's TOAS report9 Metro, Kate v2.0 Trip‐Based Travel Demand Model Methodology Report May 20208 ODOT, Portland Metro Area Value Pricing Feasibility Analysis, Final, Round 1 Concept Evaluation and Recommendations, Technical Memorandum # 3, 2018. 7 Additional photos and higher resolution copies attached● ODOT's own "tolling sensitivity analysis memo" (included in the Traffic AnalysisSupplemental Technical Report) which indicates that traffic in the No-build scenario would be much lower than indicated in the EA or SEA analyses 10. In addition, the project s SEA fails to respond to the criticisms levied in the No More Freewaysexpert panel report11 on traffic modeling from 2019. ● No average daily traffic (ADT) data.● The nature of the 2015 and 2045 transportation networks are not specified● Volumes are inexplicably inflated from current levels● Projections inconsistent with other ODOT projections developed contemporaneously● Static trip assignment exaggerates no-build traffic● Hidden assumptions and inputs● Improper extrapolation of 2040 models to 2045● Manual addition of trips to projections● Unrealistic headways in traffic analysis● Issues with Syncro modeling.● Assumed Columbia River Crossing in no-build Using outdated projections when more recent ones are available is a direct violation of NEPA standards. 12 [w]hile NEPA does not require an agency to update its population forecasts whenever new forecasts become available, it ordinarily may not rely on outdated forecasts when itsets out to prepare an EIS even though more recent forecasts from the agency's own experts are readily available. Defendants' decision to do so here was error....Defendants cannot rely on the fact that they discussed the issue in the [post‐FEIS] traffic sensitivity analysis] to excuse their failure to directly address it in the FEIS because the TSA wasnot subject to public comment. We also raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA, yetthe SEA still refuses to address this issue. 7. Failure to use appropriate analysis methods ODOT has failed to follow its own procedures, and those prescribed by the NCHRP in preparing 12 Conservation Law Found. v. Fed. Highway Admin., 2007 WL 2492737, at *22 (D.N.H. August30, 2007), summary attached 11 No More Freeways Traffic Technical Advisory Committee, April 1, 2019, attached 10 ODOT, Regional Mobility Pricing Sensitivity Analysis, July 21, 2022.(Supplemental Environmental Assessment, Traffic Technical Report, Appendix D). and documenting its traffic estimates. Both the NCHRP handbook and ODOT's own "Analysis Procedures Manual" require that traffic volume estimates be documented in a way that revealsany weaknesses and allows third parties to fully understand assumptions, and duplicate. ODOT has failed to disclose at least the following weaknesses and at least the following critical information: ODOT asserts that its travel figures are based on the Metro Travel Demand Model, but have failed to provide detailed sources or calculations showing how their figures were arrived at, instead asserting that they have followed some unspecified procedures contained in a 40-year old guide to traffic projections (NCHRP 255). This is revealed in the project s 2019 memorandum on reasonably foreseeable future actions, which describes the project s travel figures as being derived as follows: Likewise, for transportation, the forecast of the performance and operation of the highway and local transportation system is based on Metro s regional travel demand model and on analysis tools that rely on the regional model data projected to the year 2040. The travel demand model is built on population and employment growth forecasts adopted by the Metro Council and the financially constrained project list included in the RTP (Metro 2014) (Citation in original, emphasis added). What it appears Metro actually did was take vintage 2014 traffic counts and simply inflate themusing an unspecified growth factor taken from Metro s 2014 travel demand model. NCHRP 255was developed to provide analysts with a simple manual (i.e. pre-13 computer) method of extrapolating the results of regional travel demand models to areas or time periods not directly forecast in the model. ODOT failed to follow either the practices spelled out in the professional literature for applying such methods or its own Analysis Procedures Manual 14. Both of these call for providing spreadsheets or similar written calculations showing input data, describing assumptions, and generally enabling a third party to understand and replicate the calculations. The material provided in the traffic technical report is so cryptic, truncated and incomplete that itis impossible to observe key outputs or determine how they were produced. This is not merely sloppy work. This is a clear violation of professional practice in modeling. ODOT's own Analysis14 ODOT, Analysis Procedures Manual, https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Planning/Pages/APM.aspx, attached13 NCHRP 255. Pedersen, Neil J., and Donald R. Samdahl. "Highway traffic data for urbanized area project planning and design." NCHRP Report 255 (1982) Procedures Manual (which spells out how ODOT will analyze traffic data 15 to plan for highwayprojects like the Rose Quarter, states that the details need to be fully displayed: 6.2.3 DocumentationIt is critical that after every step in the DHV [design hour volume] process that all ofthe assumptions and factors are carefully documented, preferably on the graphical figures themselves. While the existing year volume development is relatively similar across types of studies, the future year volume development can go in a number ofdifferent directions with varying amounts of documentation needed. Growth factors,trip generation, land use changes are some of the items that need to bedocumented. If all is documented then anyone can easily review the work or pick upon it quickly without questioning what the assumptions were. The documentationfigures will eventually end up in the final report or in the technical appendix. The volume documentation should include:● Figures/spreadsheets showing starting volumes (30 HV)● Figures/spreadsheets showing growth factors, cumulative analysis factors, ortravel demand model post-processing.● Figures/spreadsheets showing unbalanced DHV● Figure(s) showing balanced future year DHV. See Exhibit 6-1● Notes on how future volumes were developed:○ If historic trends were used, cite the source.○ If the cumulative method was used, include a land use map, information that documents trip generation, distribution, assignment, in-process trips,and through movement (or background) growth.○ If a travel demand model was used, post-processing methods should be specified, model scenario assumptions described, and the base and future year model runs should be attached This is also essential to personal integrity in forecasting. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials publishes a manual to guide its member agencies(including ODOT) in the preparation of highway forecasts. It has specific direction on personal integrity in forecasting. National Cooperative Highway Research Project Report, "Analytical Travel Forecasting Approaches for Project-Level Planning and Design," NCHRP Report #76516 which ODOT claims provides its methodology states: 16 NCHRP Report #765, attached 15 ODOT Analysis Procedures Manual, Chapter 6, attached It is critical that the analyst maintain personal integrity. Integrity can be maintained by working closely with management and colleagues to provide a truthful forecast, including a frank discussion of the forecast s limitations. Providing transparencyin methods, computations, and results is essential. . . . The analyst should document the key assumptions that underlie a forecast and conduct validation tests, sensitivity tests, and scenario tests making sure that the results of those tests are available to anyone who wants to know more about potential errors in the forecasts. 8. Failure to fully analyze impacts of road pricing ODOT/FHWA have failed to incorporate the effects of road pricing (including 17 the Regional Mobility Pricing Program, tolling for the IBR project and tolling on I-205) in its analysis of future traffic levels in the "No-Build" future. This overstates traffic, congestion and pollution in theNo-build and under-estimates the added traffic due to the "Build" scenario. ODOT falsely and incorrectly claimed that pricing is not "reasonably foreseeable" on the basis that a specific pricing project is not included in the 2018 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). But the evidencethat pricing is integral to this project is overwhelming. Quoting the standard asserted in the SEA (Appendix B): The Environmental Protection Agency s Consideration of Cumulative Impacts In EPA Review of NEPA Documents (EPA 1999) states that analysis should incorporate information based on the planning documents of other federal agencies, and state and local governments. The decision to exclude pricing from the SEA flies in the face of overwhelming evidence:● House Bill 201718 (2017) directed (2) No later than December 31, 2018, the commission shall seek approval from the Federal Highway Administration, if required by federal law, to implement value pricing asdescribed in this section. (3) After seeking and receiving approval from the Federal Highway Administration, the commission shall implement value pricing to reduce traffic congestion. Value pricing may include, but is not limited to, variable time-of-day pricing. The commission shall implement value pricing in the following locations: (a) On Interstate 205, beginning at the Washington state line and ending where itintersects with Interstate 5 in this state. 18 Text of House Bill 201717 We use the term road pricing to be inclusive of congestion pricing used to manage the performance of a facility, tolling to finance a facility and other forms of pricing use of a facility. (b) On Interstate 5, beginning at the Washington state line and ending where it intersects with Interstate 205.● Oregon submitted an application for Value Pricing to FHWA in 201819● House Bill 3055 (2021) refines direction for a tolling program and 20 provides a revenue source for costs to implement a toll program.● The chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, Robert Van Brocklin in remarks on multiple occasions. At the March 10th Commission meeting: 21 I think it comes down kind of to this simple conclusion which is if we don't have tolling I don't see an alternative funding mechanism to do any of these. I don't think we have the resources to build the Abernethy Bridge, the Rose Quarter project or the Interstate Bridge without tolling. At the April 29th, 2022 Commission meeting: 22 I guess I will just say a couple of things one is I think that since reading House Bill 2017 when I first came on the commission and realizing we had 30 million dollars initially dedicated exclusively to Rose Quarter after House Bill 3055 last year that money became available, became more flexible in terms of our regional program but tolling has always been the primary financing tool and our ability to succeed with tolling in all of the ways we've discussed. It being equitable, it being having a demand management effect,it also being implemented is the fulcrum for really being able to do this program and sowe have to get that right ● The 2018 RTP includes this policy direction: 23 In combination with increased transit service, consider use of congestion pricing to manage congestion and raise revenue when one or more lanes are being added tothroughways. 23 2018 Regional Transportation Plan, Chapter 3, Policy 622 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvkCV0gQcms at approximately 1 hour and 8 minutes 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XblcgrAprVM at approximately 4 hours and 29 minutes 20 Text of House Bill 305519 Oregon Application to FHWA: Value Pricing Feasibility Analysis and Proposed Implementation Given this preponderance of evidence for pricing in the project corridor ODOT should not only include analysis of pricing impacts in the SEA but should consider a pricing-only alternative to the widening of the freeway. We also note that between the EA and the SEA ODOT has shifted their criteria for reasonably foreseeable pricing from the presence of a pricing project in the RTP project list, to the inclusionof a Preliminary Engineering and Right of Way element in the RTP. This appears to be an example of an agency trying to justify a decision that it has already made, not an analysis that a decision maker can review and reasonably evaluate. ODOT s slippery slope efforts to avoid evaluating road pricing is neither objective, or in keeping with the reality of the current situation. We also raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA, and the SEA does nothing (other than playing word games by changing the criteria for inclusion) to address this issue. 9. Shifting and inconsistent rationale regarding pricing analysis ODOT has presented shifting and inconsistent rationales for not treating tolling as a reasonably foreseeable. As noted above, tolling was enacted by the Oregon Legislature in 2017, well before this project s 2019 EA. In the 2019 EA, ODOT asserted that tolling could not be regarded as a reasonably foreseeable action because it was not included in the 2014 Regional Transportation Plan, and project termini had not been defined. In the 2022, SEA, ODOT has changed its story, and acknowledges that tolling is included in the RTP, but now asserts that tolling is not reasonably foreseeable because the RTP doesn t contain a project that involves right of way and design phases. ODOT claims that this is consistent with federal guidance onreasonably foreseeable actions, but cites no such guidance. In the response to comments on the 2019 EA, ODOT claimed: As discussed in Section 2.4 of the EA, congestion pricing (also referred to as valuepricing or tolling) is subject to a separate ODOT study. Congestion pricing was notconsidered to be reasonably foreseeable in the analysis presented in this EA because of the potential termini for value pricing in the I-5 corridor had not been determined and was not included in the fiscally constrained list of projects in the 2014 RTP at the time the EA and related technical reports were prepared. 24 In the 2022, SEA, ODOT now claims In 2018, the planning and environmental phases of the tolling project were added to the RTP, but consistent with federal guidance on reasonably foreseeable actions, 24 ODOT, I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project December 16, 2019 Comment Summary Report these projects are not included as RFFAs for the Supplemental EA because the ROW and design phases are not included in the RTP and the regional travel demand model. 25As outlined, this approach makes no sense and is inconsistent with multiple plans,statements, and policy directives. 10. Insufficient analysis of alternatives ODOT/FHWA failed to consider any number of alternatives to widening of the freeway. Alternatives analysis is the heart of NEPA and ODOT/FHWA need to consider a robust set of alternatives. Since the community has made clear, and State Government has accepted, that capping the freeway is a primary value of this project, options which keep the freeway narrower would greatly reduce the costs of the caps. Among the alternatives ODOT should have considered:● Pricing-only management of congestion● Pricing plus caps● A transit alternative to manage travel demand in the corridor● Transit plus caps● Caps plus selective widening of shoulders, which ODOT s consultant ARUP suggested in their analysis of the design26● Closing of one or more ramps (since insufficient interchange spacing is identified as a root causes of traffic issues in the area) We raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA, but theSEA has yet to address these problems. 11. Failure to analyze impacts of out-of-direction travel created by new design ODOT failed to include an analysis of the environmental, social and safety effects of additional driving in the Rose Quarter area due to the relocation of the I-5 southbound on ramp from N. Broadway to N. Wheeler. This relocation will add 1.3 million additional vehicle miles of travel on 26 Independent Assessment of Highway Covers for I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement (IARQ) Project Task2.1.1 -Technical Design Review Memo Appendix E, attached, p. 13: Given the emphasis on safety andtraffic congestion in the goals and objectives of the project, there is an opportunity to better reflect thecongestion and safety benefits from an extended shoulder along the entirety of the project corridor, which may mitigate the need for an additional auxiliary lane where proposed. 25 Memorandum: REASONABLY FORESEEABLE FUTURE ACTIONS COMPARISON Date: Tuesday June 15, 2022 Project: K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project To: Steve Drahota From: Brian Bauman (Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report Appendix A.https://www.i5rosequarter.org/pdfs/sea/tech_report_traffic.pdf) area streets, increasing congestion and pollution, and creating additional dangers for persons walking and biking. It will also increase air pollution and global warming. The EA and SEA ignore these issues, despite numerous comments raising these issues throughout the process. 12. Segmentation & Failure to analyze cumulative impacts ODOT/FHWA have illegally partitioned its widening of I-5 in Portland into two separate projects: (1) the Interstate Bridge Replacement; and (2) the I-5 Rose Quarter project. The environmental reviews prepared for each of these projects assume the existence of the other project in the"No-Build" circumstance. Neither project's analysis includes a true "No-build" scenario in which neither project is built. That fact alone demonstrates that the two projects are not independent or separate projects. They are linked or interdependent. They need to be analyzed as one project. Because in the absence of added capacity from either project, traffic would not physically be able to increase, ODOT has over-estimated the traffic volumes and congestion in the artificially and inaccurate"No Build" scenario presented separately in each environmental document. At the larger regional scale ODOT has defined an Urban Mobility Strategy 27 that includes several projects already underway and four additional highway expansions including the Rose Quarter project, the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project, widening of a 7-mile segment of I-205 and widening of the Boone Bridge over the Willamette River. The Mobility Strategy also includes two tolling efforts intended to fund in full in part these highway expansions. ODOT s apparent strategy is to perform an EA on each component in a discrete manner. This subverts the intent of NEPA. The region deserves an EIS on the entire collection of projects including real alternatives to management mobility in the region, including congestion pricingand transit alternatives. ODOT/FHWA cannot lawfully escape from analyzing the cumulative impacts of all these projects. According to FHWA regulations, any action evaluated under NEPA as a categorical exclusion( CE ), environmental assessment ( EA ), or environmental impact statement ( EIS ) must: (1)connect logical termini and be of sufficient length to address environmental matters, (2) have independent utility or significance, and (3) not restrict consideration of alternatives for other reasonably foreseeable transportation improvements. 23 C.F.R. § 771.111(f). Independent utility or significance represents that an action is usable and is a reasonable expenditure even if no additional transportation improvements in the area are made . 23. C.F.R. § 771.111(f)(2). Additionally, the CEQ regulations state that agencies evaluate proposals or parts of proposals that are related to each other closely enough to be, in effect, a single course of action. 4027 Urban Mobility Strategy, February 2022, attached C.F.R. § 1502.4(a). Yet in the SEA (and the underlying EA) ODOT/FHWA have tried to pretend that the Rose Quarter freeway expansion and the IBR have no connection to each other. Clearly they do, or they would not each rely on the existence of the other in their traffic analysis. NFM/NCA is concerned that FHWA may have recently adopted a practice (or policy) of trying to illegally segment freeway expansion projects. An example in the case of I-35 in Texas. 28 Suchan approach is unlawful. See e.g., Thomas v. Peterson, 753 F.2d 754 (9th. Cir. 1985) and its progeny. We also raised this issue in our complaint challenging the original FONSI and REA, and the SEA still does not address and resolve this problem. 13. Failure to acknowledge or analyze the impacts of induced demand ODOT/FHWA have failed to incorporate best available science on induced travel in its traffic modeling. Extensive published scientific research has demonstrated the concept of induced travel, also known as the "fundamental law of road congestion. 29 The best available science shows that there is a unit elasticity of vehicle travel with respect to road capacity in urban areas. A one percent increase in road capacity tends to produce a one percent increase in vehicletravel. ODOT's traffic estimates contain no provision for incorporating induced travel into their calculations, and therefore under-estimate traffic levels in the "build" scenario. As a result, the 29 Goodwin, P.B. Empirical evidence on induced traffic. Transportation 23, 35 54 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00166218Coombe, D. Induced traffic: what do transportation models tell us?. Transportation 23, 83 101 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00166221Duranton, Gilles, and Matthew A. Turner. 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities." American Economic Review, 101 (6): 2616-52.Hymel, Kent, 2019. "If you build it, they will drive: Measuring induced demand for vehicle travel in urbanareas," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 57-66. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X18301720Hsu, Wen-Tai & Zhang, Hongliang, 2014. "The fundamental law of highway congestion revisited:Evidence from national expressways in Japan," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages65-76. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119014000126Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López, Ilias Pasidis, Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, Congestion in highways when tolls and railroads matter: evidence from European cities, Journal of Economic Geography, Volume 22, Issue5, September 2022, Pages 931 960, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbab02528 ReThink35 v. TxDOT, attached ODOT analysis over states the traffic flow benefits of the project, and understates the costs from increased driving, pollution and crashes. A recent review of transportation models used by state highway departments concluded that these models fail to include provisions for estimating induced travel and this causes them to underestimate the environmental effects of highway expansion projects. Despite strong evidence, the induced travel effect is often ignored, underestimated, or misestimated in the planning process, particularly in the assessment of the environmental impacts of roadway capacity expansions. Underestimating induced travel will generally lead to over estimation of the traffic congestion relief benefits a highway expansion project might generate, along with underestimation of its environmental impacts. A major reason that induced travel tends to be underplayed in environmental analyses is that travel demand models do not typically include all of the feedback loops necessary to accurately predict the induced travel effect. 30 ODOT has officially adopted an Analysis Procedures Manual, which, without evidence, dismisses the scientific evidence on induced demand and prohibits consideration of induced travel in Ore |
| 7495 | Erin | Blenkiron | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Impact on the people in the community is priority #1! This includes air and noise pollution at the top of the list, followed by access to transportation (for all- those with disabilities and low income should be prioritized) and pedestrian and cyclist access to green ways and other safe infrastructure. Adding highways impedes all of these and creates more pollution and destruction to the health of our most at risk people. Harriet Tubman students and the Black community have been particularly harmed by the highways initial construction. This expansion would bring more harm. Capping the existing highway and investing in efficient public transport would reduce pollution, congestion, and further harms to vulnerable communities. |
| 7496 | Andrew | Neerman | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a small business owner with a small child, I am profoundly concerned about the growing biodiversity and climate crises and wish that ODOT would start building for the future, not the 1950's. ODOT has been caught lying and obfuscating repeatedly during this process (and many others, including the CRC, which I also oppose as currently proposed) and for that reason the citizens of Portland and especially those of us in inner N/NE who live near the proposed expansion know that we cannot trust the agency. This is a terrible, even shameful, project to be pushing in these dire times, seemingly done because of ODOT's longstanding bias towards cars and because of the amount of Federal dollars that will be pulled into the region. I thus believe that ODOT should conduct a full EIS so that we can take a deep dive into alternatives like tolling. In my opinion, we should be studying the *removal* of I-5 from the east bank of the Willamette, not inducing more demand for fossil-fuels-based freeway travel by adding capacity to the freeway.Remember when Portland was known for being one of the most "progressive" cities in the nation, if not the world, in the realm of transportation planning? Only a few decades ago? The widespread public resistance to this project should act as a clarion call that we need to get back to walking the talk. This is a deeply un-democratic project and it has been from day one, complete with racist overtones and a deaf ear to facts and data. The previous comment period generated comments that were 90% in opposition. Find your moral compass, ODOT, and do an EIS. |
| 7497 | Daniel | Reimer | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Tailpipe emissions, alongside tire wear that is responsible for most of the particulate pollution, and carcinogenic brake dust, are reasons there should not be additional highway lanes. This proposal would make the area less friendly to anyone outside a car, cause more pollution, and further divide the neighborhood that was originally destroyed by i-5 construction. There is no racial restorative justice in freeway expansions. |
| 7498 | Ell | Bradshaw | Supplemental EA public comment period: Lids not Lanes and a full EIS for Rose Quarter |
| 7499 | Merrilee | Newman | As a resident and homeowner in the Eliot neighborhoodI am very much against the I5 Improvement project. It will add to already unacceptable street traffic conditions in this area. Additionally the air quality here is already highly degraded. The proposed improvement is an insult to the residences whose neighborhood was torn apart by the original insensitive location of the freeway. Sincerely, Merrilee Newman |
| 7500 | Audrey | Groce | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To Whom it May Concern: I ask that you please reconsider moving forward with the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. This is not the time to be expanding our freeways. Oregon needs to be a climate leader, and adding additional lanes to the freeway is an expensive and short sighted solution that will only increase pollution and will only temporarily reduce traffic. I urge you to conduct a full EIS that explores other options to expansion in order to reduce congestion. Tolls would be a good place to start. With the recent uptick in traffic deaths in the city, your focus is better served on making our streets safer, not creating more high speed corridors for cars. Thank you for your time, Audrey Groce |
| 7501 | Roin | Ray | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The citizens of the neighborhoods that will be affected most by this expansion have historically been sidelined and no EIS this time will repeat these past mistakes In addition, these neighborhoods are already dealing with increased heavy metals pollution (stained glass manufacturers), and toxic chemicals present in greater concentrations due to I-5. Expanding I-5 will increase, not decrease these hazards. We all deserve better, and to treat others better. A thorough EIS is a small start. |
| 7502 | Joshua | Phillips | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a person under 25, an Oregonian, someone who works in education, and someone who frequently commutes by Freeway, I am urging ODOT to conduct a FULL environmental impact assessment of the Rose Quarter Freeway expansion project. This project has some benefits, but in its current form it is an unacceptable burden that Oregon cannot afford to take on. It will directly INCREASE greenhouse gas emissions by making freeway commuting a more convenient and viable (yet still congested) option for more people. This means more fossil fuels burnt. Listen to everyday oregonians and conduct a full Impact statement. |
| 7503 | Mick | Hangland-Skill | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: USDOT themselves say that freeway expansions do not work; they do nothing to reduce congestion and instead induce more demand. ODOT must conduct an EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter expansion, then also explore what congestion pricing can do to actually reduce congestion and demand. That money should then be used to invest in public transit, which is a true solution to both our traffic and environmental woes. |
| 7504 | Piera | Greathouse | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a long-time resident of NE Portland, I write today to advocate for the necessity of an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Before moving forward with any plan to create additional infrastructure supporting increased traffic in this historically marginalized community, we must have an honest assessment of the consequences to local air quality, climate related emissions, and pedestrian / bicycle safety. |
| 7505 | Kerry | Aszklar | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am writing as a multimodal transportation Portlander to demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion.This mega project does not look at alternatives sufficiently to warrant this highway expansion, including tolling, frequent and high speed public transportation, and walking and bicycling improvements. We need to invest in better options so that those who truly need to use Interstate 5 for travel (freight) can benefit from removing single occupancy vehicles from the highway and make local trips more feasible and easier. This project also needs to invest in the lids over the highway to rebuild a broken street network in a neighborhood robbed of a bright a thriving future decades ago. Please conduct a full EIS. |
| 7506 | Tyler | Pell | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Spending over one billion dollars of taxpayer money on unsustainable and dangerous transportation infrastructure without a thorough analysis of the impact on our communities is irresponsible verging on negligent. Portlanders are proud of our legacy of prioritizing livability over short-sighted automobile centric boondoggles. We removed roadways like Harbor Drive and fought the Mt. Hood freeway project--doubling down on highway expansion now in light of all we know about climate impact and induced demand doesn't make any sense. We demand an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. |
| 7507 | Iva | Borrelo | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A freeway expansion in portland is a devastating idea. We don t need more car access, but rather better public transportation on the roads we currently have. Not only would a large freeway further disrupt the landscape and natural habitat, it would contribute to worse air quality. I am a 19 year old who has lived in Portland my entire life. I live fairly close to them and have noticed the air quality worsen over the course of my childhood. One of my best friends moved to another state and out of this neighborhood because of asthma issues related to poor air quality here in Portland. I think it would be a a very big mistake to expand the freeway. |
| 7508 | Ell | Bradshaw | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It's irresponsible and embarrassing for our government to be spending huge amounts of money pushing through more freeway lanes when we're hurtling towards a climate crisis. Encouraging more personal vehicles - electric or not - is the opposite of what we need to be doing to move towards a sustainable future and a livable city. This push makes a mockery of Portland and Oregon as "climate leaders". ODOT so far has been misleading and deceptive in how it has presented this project, and for good reason: it is a dramatically unpopular policy decision that does not have the support of the people who live here.Any EIS and survey of options that dismisses actual climate-positive strategies like tolling and congestion pricing out of hand is a farce. Study after study has shown that more often that not, more lanes just induces more demand, and we end up spending huge amounts of resources to achieve negligible reduction in congestion and dramatically increased emissions. I have lived in Northwest Portland for over a decade, and much of my weekly routine takes me across the river and through the Rose Quarter. That trip is often slower than I would like, not because of freeway congestion, but because this city so few of the busses I rely on are "frequent" service, and the MAX has to make a torturously slow crawl along the west side to make it across the river. TriMet is doing the best it can with the limited funds allocated to it, but the US has a lot of catching up to do in public transit, and Portland is no exception. We need to putting all the resources we can into building a transit system that is convenient and reliable enough that it's the obvious alternative to private vehicles, not building more freeways to reward individuals for towing their ever-growing 2000-pound personal transport pods with them everywhere they go. The budget for this freeway expansion could easily fund multiple years of fare-free TriMet, or speed the timetable of crucial expansions like the Southwest Corridor or increased service. At a time of proposed fare increases and service cuts, it's ludicrous to be allocating resources to expanding freeways yet again. Oregon also has some catching up to do in its historic freeway injustices. ODOT should enact the Hybrid 3 plan to put a lid on the freeway through Albina without tying it to expansion. We need to work towards long-overdue restoration of the neighborhoods that were destroyed by racist, classist freeway routing decisions of the past, without holding that project hostage to climate-backwards expansions. ODOT should conduct an thorough Environmental Impact Statement for the freeway expansion that considers all options, and stop trying to speed through a deeply unpopular expansion while dismissing climate-positive solutions out of hand. |
| 7509 | Hazel | Walrod | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear ODOT,I am writing to request you conduct an environmental impact statement that addresses the true cost this expansion would have on the people of Portland.I am an 18-year-old who has lived in NE Portland in the Overlook neighborhood, right next to the Swan Island entrance/exit for the majority of my life. Despite the bottleneck merges right next to my exit, I STRONGLY OPPOSE freeway expansion.FREEWAYS ARE UGLY, LOUD, EXPENSIVE, TAKE UP TOO MUCH SPACE, AND ONLY ENCOURAGE MORE POLLUTION. Why are you trying to turn a city into a through way? What does it matter if we have more lanes and it is easier to get around if there is nowhere for people to LIVE anymore and the living conditions are miserable because of noise and car exhaust? Widening the freeway would introduce more cars and more noise and air pollution to my neighborhood and the neighborhoods on the other side of the freeway. Perhaps most significantly, I have already seen the culture and community of Albina neighborhood eroded throughout the last several years, and now it is at risk of near demolition because of this plan. ODOT has a history of plowing through poor neighborhoods and communities of color in order to build their infrastructure, and this is yet another manifestation of that. The people who live here WOULD NOT benefit from more freeway lanes. Stop displacing people from their homes! I am also very concerned about the impact this plan could have on the already harrowing homelessness crisis if more people were forced to relocate. Portland is supposed to be a bike-friendly city and yet this plan would endanger bikers if Williams became a through-way for drivers, and more of our streets were narrowed to make room for the freeway. Instead of expanding the freeway, congestion could be solved by increasing public transportation infrastructure like building more MAX lines and bus routes, and reducing or eliminating fares. If you have money to consider a freeway expansion, then bolster public transport and patch up the roads in the area like Prescott where there are hazardous potholes!!! I hope you will take what I have said into account (although I doubt you will) when you draft a COMPLETE, ACCURATE, AND THOROUGH environmental impact statement as community advocates for the neighborhoods you are destroying have urged you to do. I sincerely hope this hasty and poorly thought-out construction is never built. Sincerely, Hazel |
| 7510 | molly | stanton | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOf should conduct an environmental impact statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion to ensure the safety of portland residences, both human as well as animal and plant. Freeways cause many environmental as well as financial impacts that need to be fully explored before we can explore the idea of making new freeways. |
| 7511 | Catherine | B. | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I reside in the neighborhood and drive, bus and bike. The more I learn about this project, the more apprehensive I become about how this will impact our climate and my community. I would like ODOT to research all the options with the least impacts and conduct a full EIS. Thank you. |
| 7512 | Ell | Bradshaw | Supplemental EA public comment period: Lids not Lanes and a full EIS for Rose Quarter |
| 7513 | Harlan | Shober | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: People have been trying to get your attention about the problem of induced demand for some time. It does seem to be a real thing. So, let s take it seriously. In this time of global warming or , less politely, catastrophic climate destabilization we all have to avoid making things worse. We need to adopt a WW II level of urgency to re-directing resourses. More of the same isn t the right thing to do. In Barak Obama s inner circle, the byword was Don t do stupid stuff, or words to that effect. Climate leaders don t build freeways. |
| 7514 | Mary Lou | Soscia | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This freeway expansion will benefit limited people and will greatly harm underserved populations and young people through increased air pollutants crested from construction dust and increased highway traffic. There are many other ways to solve traffic congestion rather than build more roads, a 1960s solution to a 2023! problem. |
| 7515 | Marj | Hogan | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Conducting an EIS is common sense. The public has a right to know the full impact of the proposed project, and to understand possible alternatives. It's in ODOT's best interest to show that the department can be transparent and honest with those who live, work, pay taxes, go to school, and commute in this corridor. |
| 7516 | Katya | Tripp | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland does not have good air quality to begin with and we need to do ans environmental impact study for this proposed expansion |
| 7517 | David | Sawchak | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Basically anything to stall this project. It's dodged accountability, already backpedaling on initial promises, does not seem to offer a clear traffic benefit, and seems to be continually greenlit despite overwhelming public opposition.Improving the I5 crossing at the Columbia would also improve traffic, futureproof critical infrastructure, and is a far better allocation of State/Federal funds. |
| 7518 | Nate | Harris | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: My black grandmothers family home was destroyed for the construction of the hospital in the Albina neighborhood when she was a child. The block that her family, as well as dozens of other black families once lived on is now home to an empty, overgrown grass lot. Every time we drive by it s a slap in the face - a reminder of the homes and generational wealth so many were robbed of when forced to move. The construction of this freeway will be yet another slap in the face. While Portland politicians put on a mask of progressiveness, this reckless plan shows that not much has changed. |
| 7519 | Paxton | Rothwell | Dear Oregon Department of Transportation,I am urging you to conduct an Environmental Impact Study on your I-5 Rose Quarter project. I strongly believe that you are wasting taxpayer money on an ill-conceived effort to expand I-5 through one of the most transit dense neighborhoods in Oregon. No matter how much money you use to create a narrative that more lanes are necessary, the end result will be more drivers in a neighborhood that is already awash with them.Take a walk with me in the Rose Quarter for a moment. I want to show you how it feels to be on foot on car infested streets. And, before I begin, I want to add one plain truth: the drivers who use these cars do so because YOU continue to enable them to. You're slow rolling restorative justice in this neighborhood by insisting that more car capacity is needed in this urban environment. Change can be made and you can be the ones making this change. But you are blinded by the need for more space for cars. We need a Department of Transportation, not a Highway Department (even though that's how you were brought into existence). You need to do better for the Oregonians that you serve.Now I will begin:Welcome to the Rose Quarter! How did you get here today? Likely you arrived by car. The vast majority of the private land in the area is dedicated to car storage, so you will have ample opportunity to store your vehicle while you visit. Most of the streets have multiple lanes for car travel, so you will have an easy time maneuvering safely through the area. And, if you're here for an event at the Moda Center or Memorial Coliseum, you'll benefit from the traffic control hired to get you back onto the interstate in no time. The Rose Quarter is a driver's paradise! ODOT wants to make it even easier for you to come here or pass through, so they're proposing a Billion Dollar Plus freeway expansion so that you, yes you Mr. Car Driver, can live even further from where you work and still get there quickly. Now isn't that just nifty?Did you arrive by transit? The Rose Quarter has all four of TriMet's MAX lines, two streetcar lines, and eight bus lines converging in the district. With so many transit options it must be a great place if you're a transit rider. Or is it? Besides the Rose Quarter Transit Center (conveniently located beneath a roaring freeway just steps from the Moda Center) many transit stops leave you in a sea of cars (see attached). In fact, it doesn't seem like there are many destinations besides the Moda Center and Memorial Coliseum. Well, I do suppose there is the Lloyd District with its near-vacant mall ringed with empty parking lots or its near-vacant office buildings intermingled with empty parking lots. No, I guess that's not much of a destination either... It is great that the streetcar runs through the Rose Quarter though! Its sleek style and low entry floors make it the perfect way to browse shops around town. It works great in the Pearl District, but here, in the Rose Quarter? It met the same fate as the rest of the transit: overshadowed by the dead dream of the 1950s. The notion of a car in every garage and the automobility of wide streets and empty parking lots seems almost evil when seen from this vantage point. To see what pursuing this racially motivated dream did to our inner city makes me sick, but I digress. (Again, see attached to see the state of transit in the Rose Quarter)Did you arrive by foot or by bike? All transit riders navigate by foot at some point, and many transfer to a bike for a portion of their journey. Much of the transit description of the area can be said about pedestrians and cyclists. But, unfortunately, there is more to be seen. Rose City WoesYou want to walk to the game tonight? That should be simple, right? It's not that far. Alright, let's go!We head out of our neighborhood toward Weidler. A few blocks away things begin to change. The vacantness of the area arises. What used to be a feeling of comfortable closeness brought on by the homes and trees shifts to one of loneliness. To our right a city block sized parking lot lies vacant. Moss covers the wheel stops and a large puddle forms in the middle. Ahead a signal displays a halted hand. It's time to cross Broadway. We push the button and wait. Four lanes of car traffic roar by mere feet in front of us. We continue to wait. I turn around and look back where we came. Houses line the street just a few blocks away and yet here we are, waiting to cross 60 feet of certain death. The signal changes to an image of a human walking. We begin to cross. I look left and headlights blind me. The idling of the engines makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. A red light keeps tons of steel from crushing my frail human body to the ground. I shudder when the number of road fatalities in Portland this year crosses my mind.We safely cross. We cross Weidler at the next light (after waiting again of course). And we head west toward the game. A fence closes us in on the left, and four lanes of roaring auto traffic close us in on the right. I glance at the faces of drivers headed east. One looks down at their device. One shakes their fist at the driver who cut them off. One stares ahead with eyes glazed over from a long day on the road. On and on they flow by in their powerful machines. None seem to notice us and yet we notice them. There are other humans in this area it seems. They're just wrapped into their own mobile world.I look back ahead and notice someone approaching. They walk erratically and drag a blanket. Now I'm scared. The fence on the left and the traffic on the right feel like walls closing in. My throat gets tight and the hairs on my arm reach for the sun above. I make a quick glance at my friend as they glance back. We have nowhere else to go but forward, so we press on.We keep our eyes cast down and pass the stranger with no issue. My mind jumps through all of the scenarios that could have happened as I am brought back to the unwelcome present. Here I am not too far from my home and I am in a world that was not built for a human outside of a car. Sure, humans use this area, but the lack of people outside of a car tells me that it is not common. No one takes a leisure stroll around the Rose Quarter. And as I wonder why this is, I receive my answer. To our left a sea of cars produce a cacophony that makes the ears want to bleed. Speeding through at nearly 70 miles per hour, travelers from near and far rip through the heart of RIP city. And now my friend and I, with no protection at all, cross the exit ramp from Interstate 5. We shove onto the tight sidewalk to cross over the freeway. Below cars whiz by ignorant of our presence. Semi-truck drivers let off their gas as their retarders emit a noise I can only compare to a fart but with a decibel value that causes hearing damage. We cross above the behemoth that carries goods from Mexico to Canada. The interstate and its bureaucratic agencies that maintain it have little regard for the towns and cities crushed by its oppressive force. As we cross I imagine it wider and my brain shuts down. I think this is bad enough. How could anyone outside of a car here benefit from more of this.The rest of our walk to the Moda Center is less eventful. We continue to cross steroid-sized public streets flooded with drivers and their cars. We cross driveways of parking structures that are only ever used during events at the Moda Center or Memorial Coliseum. We make it to our destination without injury. And today we remember that walk still. It was the day it all clicked for me. It was the day I saw how it really was. I saw how easy it is to be ignorant of the experience of cyclists and pedestrians when behind the wheel of a car. I suspect many proponents of this project have never walked through the project area. I suggest they all take a walk in the Rose Quarter before signing off on this ill-conceived mega project.-----------The Rose Quarter is nearly inhospitable to transit, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. I'd rank them as a 'D'. Your Supplemental Environmental Analysis shows the environment for these modes slightly improves with the project, maybe even to a 'C'. But you're stacking the books. A 'C' ranking is unacceptable in this neighborhood especially since many other centrally located neighborhoods in Portland have a 'B' or 'A'. The Rose Quarter is centrally located in the densest city in the state, steps from dense frequent transit, across the river from a passenger rail station, and a main connection for north-south cyclists. It deserves the highest level of pedestrian, transit, and cyclist friendliness. But this project keeps these modes oppressed in order to keep driving convenient for people often traveling through the area.You have the opportunity to fix this mayhem with this project. I suggest you do the following: 1. Conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for this project 2. Evaluate how the regional toll initiative will reduce travel in the area 3. Direct long haul truckers to use I-205 through the Portland region 4. Limit access to I-5 in order to help solve your short merge problem: * Close the exit ramp to Broadway/Weidler from NB I-5 * Close the entrance ramp to SB I-5 from Wheeler Ave 5. Cap I-5 as is. Design these caps to hold at least three story buildings. Rebuild the street grid atop these caps so that this area can grow into a neighborhood worth living in. 6. Study options for tunneling I-84 under the Willamette and downtown so that it can connect to US-26. This connection will relieve most traffic on the I-5/84 interchange.I ask that you truly take my comment to heart. Take a moment and step back from your car-fueled highway machine and ask yourself: what world do you want to leave to the children? One where Oregon doubled down on a freeway that pumps pollution into the lungs of middle schoolers? Or one where Oregon invested in something groundbreaking: a limit on automobility and a humble reinvestment in a community that was fragmented by the racist freeway building dogma of the past? I know which future I choose. A better world takes hard work, Paxton Rothwell |
| 7520 | Jacob | dwelle | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We know and understand the impacts that freeway expansion has on our communities. Money would be better spent on increasing access to greener solutions, like trains, protected bike lanes, and further infrastructure. We must reduce our dependence on cars - this proposal to expand the freeways would do the opposite. Don t invest in something which we will need to divest from in the future. |
| 7521 | Nora | Lehmann | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I'm a mom of two young children, and we live in the I5 corridor in the Humboldt neighborhood. It enrages me that ODOT is hellbent on expanding the freeway before trying congestion pricing, which numerous studies have shown would eliminate traffic congestion, while also providing cleaner air for our neighborhood and lowering carbon emissions!The fact that ODOT is so hellbent on widening I5 in this make-or-break decade for climate action is bad enough, but their relentless PR attempt to greenwash the whole disastrous project truly adds insult to injury (Down is up! We're not widening a freeway, those are just auxiliary lanes! More cars are good for climate change, actually!)If ODOT wants to borrow what is the grand total up to now, anyway? Like, a gazillion dollars at this point? to pay for building more polluting, planet-heating freeway lanes, they *must* be required to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to prove that this is truly the only possible way to reduce congestion. As a mom, a climate activist, and a resident of Portland, I do not feel that I can trust ODOT one iota with either my tax dollars or my family's safety as we try to navigate surface streets as pedestrians and cyclists or my children's future on this rapidly overheating planet. This agency has a serious accountability deficit, and it needs to end here, before this bloated monstrosity of a project goes any farther. |
| 7522 | Mark | Sexton | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The project has changed so much - and is so damaging to pedestrians and bicyclists - that a new EIS is necessary. And there needs to be an assessment if the goals could be achieved simply by imposing tolls.________________________________Time: January 3, 2023 at 8:34 pm IP Address: 73.25.155.7 Contact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx.com/lidsnotlanes/Sent by an unverified visitor to your site. |
| 7523 | Rich | Rice | Please send hardcopy mailings here, too. We manage a building on 2nd and Broadway, the Tourtellotte Building. |
| 7524 | Kyle | Wells | I would just like to briefly express my objection to this project, and particularly the design of freeway on/off ramps on N. Williams. This is an unacceptable design from the perspective of bicyclist safety and would make a heavily trafficked bike corridor much less safe. ODOT has a horrible track record of safe infrastructure for vulnerable road users and this design continues the wrong-headed practices that have recently contributed to the death of at least one cyclist in Portland recently, as well as the hugely disproportionate number of pedestrian deaths that occur on ODOT managed properties. My understanding is that ODOT's own contractors have done analysis that shows that congestion pricing would likely solve congestion on I-5 without additional freeway lanes, from a cost-management perspective this also seems greatly preferable to freeway expansion. If ODOT is truly concerned about safety, they should take those cost savings and use them to improve any of the many ODOT managed properties (like Powell) where there are actually many deaths.--Sincerely, Kyle Wells |
| 7525 | Sarah | Baker | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion, because we are facing a Climate Catastrophe. And once that statement tells us what we already know, that widening freeways does nothing for traffic but line the pockets of developers and fill the lungs of our community members with pollution, I demand that our cities leaders spend our precious tax dollars on climate solutions that make a real difference for our collective future. |
| 7526 | David | Whitaker | The Revised Build Alternative does not make it safer for vulnerable users to bicycle through the Rose Quarter area. Modifications to bicycle infrastructure within the project area will result in a significant negative impact on the human environment. A substantial majority of Portland-area bike crashes have taken place at intersections (84% between 2010 and 2015). The Revised Build Alternative will add an intersection at the connection with the I-5 SB off ramp and N Williams, will route more traffic through the intersection at the connection with the I-5 NB ramp and NE Weidler and will route significantly more traffic through the intersection of N Williams and N Weidler. In fact, it will add double right-hand turn lanes at 4 new locations and retain the existing 2 double right-hand turn lanes. The project proposes to mitigate the impact of additional traffic and the additional intersection by adding widened and raised bike lanes. However, in section 6.2.2.3 of the project s 2019 Transportation Safety Technical Report its stated that the addition of protected bike lanes could introduce right-hook collision potential for bicyclists (at intersections) absent sufficient sight distance, intersection geometry, and operations. So, the proposed mitigation measures have a high potential to make it more dangerous to travel by bicycle through the project area, especially since many of the drivers of trucks and automobiles will be unfamiliar with the area since they will only occasionally use the area for events taking place at the Rose Quarter, and or making deliveries to the Lower Albina Industrial area. |
| 7527 | Lowell | Kissling | As we grapple with the climate crisis, it is absolutely vital that every city and state does their part in reducing emissions. Despite ODOT's insistence that they are only building an auxiliary lane through the rose quarter, their own plans reveal that they plan to double the width of the freeway footprint in the project area. Once the I-5 bridge project and its 5 miles of highway expansion north of the rose quarter is complete, it will be all too easy for ODOT to convert the oversized shoulders they are currently including in the rose quarter project into additional lanes. This is a massive expansion being thinly veiled as a single "auxiliary" lane in each direction.ODOT's suggestion that emissions will be reduced by expanding the freeway is preposterous, as has been proven by literally every freeway expansion that has been built over the past 70 years.ODOT is shirking responsible planning by refusing to conduct a full EIS that could reveal real and effective alternatives for alleviating congestion in the rose quarter. It is entirely possible to cap I-5 through the rose quarter and alleviate congestion without adding a single lane, "auxiliary" or not. |
| 7528 | David | Whitaker | Poorly planned connection of the Green Loop. The SEA Executive Summary states that the Revised Build Alternative would improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists by increasing physical separation between motorized and non-motorized users, sidewalk gap closures, and reduction in the complexity of intersections. However, this alternative proposes to add 3 new double right-hand turn lanes intersections along the planned route of the Green Loop, which will follow both Broadway and Weidler. These double right-hand turn intersections are intimidating intersections to cycle though. I don t like to bike down NE Broadway because it makes me nervous to bike through the existing double right-turn intersection at the on-ramp to I-5 northbound. In fact, the Multimodal Risk/Safety Assessment developed for the project states that existing complex intersection features with higher bicycle/pedestrian risk potential include slip lanes and double turn lanes. While some of these risk factors may be addressed through signal timing, these conditions create uncomfortable conflict points for cyclists like myself and pedestrians too. A primary goal of the Green Loop is to attract less confident cyclists to ride in the central city. Removal of the Clackamas Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge from the Revised Build Alternative will eliminate a key link of the Green Loop that would allow a low stress connection along the Green Loop and between the Rose Quarter and the Lloyd District. It is important to add the Clackamas Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge back into the project. |
| 7529 | David | Whitaker | Proposed Safety Improvements from Project Implementation aren t evident. The stated purpose for this project (pg ES-3) is to improve the safety and operations on I-5 between I-405 and I-84, at the interchange of I-5 and N Broadway and NE Weidler (Broadway/Weidler interchange), and on adjacent surface streets in the vicinity of the Broadway/Weidler interchange. The SEA states that I-5 within the project area has the highest crash rate in Oregon. What it doesn t tell the reader is that these crashes tend to be low speed fender-benders that only lead to property damage or minor injuries. The SEA analysis does not adequately address serious crashes, which is inconsistent with federal, state, and regional policies to eliminate serious crashes. As indicated in EA Safety Technical Appendix B, the one fatal crash between 2011 and 2015 involved a pedestrian on the freeway. There were two similar crashes involving pedestrians in 2009 and 2010, outside of the study time frame, indicating a pattern rather than a random occurrence. The EA does not address these fatalities or describe how the alternatives would address preventing fatalities of this type in the future. |
| 7530 | David | Whitaker | The claim that the project will improve the safety of adjacent surface streets (pg ES-3) is false. One example of this false claim is the increase in truck and car traffic that will be routed onto N Williams from the new I-5 southbound ramp. The conceptual design full roll plots for the project show the radius of curvature for intersections at the I-5 SB ramp and at N Weidler as wide, sweeping turns that will allow for faster movement by cars and trucks and longer crossing distances for cyclists and pedestrians. All over the city, PBOT is creating bump-outs to reduce crossing distance for pedestrians and cyclists, but in not within the project area. This area has some of the most concentrated uses by pedestrians (accessing the Rose Quarter) and cyclists (commuting north on Williams and east/west on Weidler and Broadway), but the project makes it more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. The Active Transportation Supplemental Technical Report states on page 23 The relocation of the I-5 southbound offramp at the intersection of NE Wheeler Avenue/ N Ramsay Way/ N Williams Avenue (formerly NE Wheeler) & N Vancouver Avenue under the Revised Build Alternative would increase the length and complexity of crossings and reduce safety for northbound cyclists and pedestrians on N Williams Avenue south of N/NE Weidler Street compared to the Build and No-Build Alternatives . A PBOT representative was quoted as saying - Our understanding of the Hybrid 3 purpose and intent was a design approach that shifts from an auto-focused street environment, to a pedestrian-oriented system that prioritizes pedestrian safety and experience making the streets around new development opportunities and highway covers to be more people and business friendly, with less I-5 traffic circulating through the area. Obviously PBOT did not adequately understand the Revised Build Alternative design approach as it retains an auto/truck focus and does not shift to a system that prioritizes pedestrian safety and experience. |
| 7531 | David | Whitaker | Future traffic volumes. Through inference, the SEA claims that implementation of the Revised Build Alternative would potentially save travelers 7 minutes on their travels through the 1.4-mile project area. This would be an incredible time savings if it were only true. This travel time savings was calculated from values presented in the SEA. Travel Time Saved per Year (2,500,000 hrs pg ES-7)/ (Average Annual Daily Trips [121,400 pg ES-3] * Average days per year [365.25] * the Hours of Congestion per day [12 pg ES-3]/24 hours). However, this calculation has to use the existing average annual daily trips since the SEA doesn t report future average annual daily trips. The average annual daily trips must increase as a result of building additional freeway capacity, but the number of future average annual daily trips isn t reported in the tables in either the Draft Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report or the Traffic Analysis Technical Report. Instead, the tables show the volume/capacity (V/C) ratios without reporting either the volume or capacity. This lack of supporting data is inconsistent with the ODOT s Analysis Procedure Manual (Section 6.2.3), which requires the data supporting the generation of future traffic volumes be carefully documented in either the main body of the report or included in the technical appendix. |
| 7532 | David | Whitaker | Lower Cost Alternative. Appendix D of the Draft Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report includes a Memorandum that looked at the impacts that the Rose Quarter Interchange Project (RQ project) and the Regional Mobility Pricing Project (RMPP) could have on each other. In order to meet the Operational and Reliability goal of the reducing congestion within the project area on I-5 (pg ES-3), it appears that the RMPP would reduce congestion more than the RQ project would. Table 4 of the document shows that the 2045 Average Weekday Traffic Speed (in mph) on I-5 between I-405 and Broadway/Weidler Interchange would be greater if the RMPP were implemented than it would be if the RQ project were implemented (33 to 39 mph vs 39 to 45 mph). Places like Seattle and Minneapolis/St. Paul have been using congestion pricing for over a decade with great success. In Seattle, the Federal Highway Administration reported traffic volumes decreased by 35-40 percent, and in Minneapolis/St. Paul, the state's Department of Transportation found drivers were able to travel at speeds above 45 mph approximately 96 percent of the time. The goal of reducing congestion within the RQ project area could be achieved at a fraction of the cost through implementation of the RMPP (and not building the RQ project), thereby reserving important funds to meet the annual shortfall of $510 million to adequately maintain bridges and roads in Oregon (ODOT Tolling Website Purpose Statement). |
| 7533 | Andrew | Schwartz | As a Portland resident, I cannot fathom the amount of disruption this would cause for the broader metro area or for anyone who has to travel through our town. The health and environmental consequences in the near and long term are enough to say no to this project. The near term disruption coupled with the the longterm health and environmental impacts cannot possibly justify any benefit, this project would bring (which appears to be aspirational at best). I would love to see an investment in rail and public transportation so that local residents don't have to drive which would free up more space on the road for interstate commuters. |
| 7534 | Sean | McClintock | No More Lanes! The hybrid 3 proposal should be funded and decoupled from ODOT s original proposal to add 1.8 miles lanes of polluting freeway.Complete a full EIS! ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion as claimed.Independent Investigation into ODOT! There is a long list instances where ODOT has withheld crucial information or demonstrably mislead the public. ODOT's continued efforts to avoid basic transparency and public accountability are unacceptable! I want to see an independent investigation and subsequent reforms at ODOT. |
| 7535 | Thomas | Malthouse | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This project is a disgrace. It's bad for the city, bad for the regional economy, and completely at odds with Portland's stated environmental goals. If ODOT insists on building this 1950s-brained highway expansion, the least it can do is credibly assess the project's harms and mitigate them as much as possible.I moved to Chicago a few years ago for the job market and higher quality of life both of which are directly related to this city's extensive transit system and commitment to non-car transportation. It's shameful that Portland and Oregon despite their reputation continue to double down on past mistakes and kneecap themselves like this. |
| 7536 | Eliot | Cole | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in the affected area and am concerned about the impact this expansion will have on the air quality of my neighborhood and the climate. As someone with a chronic respiratory condition, air quality is particularly important to me and I worry that expanding I-5 will lead to worse health for me and my neighbors. Climate change should also be taken more seriously and we should find green alternatives to expanding our car infrastructure. I strongly oppose the Rose Quarter expansion. |
| 7538 | Kristen | Bakouros | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Portland s history of expanding roads and freeways has never been anything but class and wealth related. Moving forward, as it becomes clear that freeways don t create sustainable cities, new ideas must be examined. |
| 7539 | Jeff | Horne | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There must be an EIS of the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. In general I do not support the expansion of the Rose Quarter Freeway. I moved here from LA 15 years ago to escape a city of continual gridlock and where concrete created vast dead zones where no one could live, pedestrians and cyclists couldn't move freely, and environmental devastation from more and more cars being on the roads. Our population will continue to expand and there are much more creative and sustainable solutions than just building more roads. |
| 7540 | Amy | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is far past time that ODOT be truthful and conduct an EI assessment and make a truthful statement. We all know that the truth is that the air and soil are getting more polluted, that the state should put more infrastructure money into buses so that people, especially poor and vulnerable people who do not drive, do not suffer from the luxury of driving on more and "better" freeways. Let's all take a breath. Let's notice that the air into our lungs is one of the most important elements that allows life. By not conducting an honest study of what wider freeways allowing more cars rushing past will do, even the faithful people at ODOT will not be able to deny (and sleep at night) that THERE MUST BE ANOTHER SOLUTION TO FREEWAY EXPANSION. You are killing people and lying through your process. Please slow down and do the right thing. Would you want your child's doctor to do a surgery--the imapact of which the medical field has not studied--on your child?! Would you just go on faith that things would be OK for your beloved child? I hope not. So don't do that to the good people of Portland/Oregon/Earth. | |
| 7541 | Alexander M | Lee | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The health of my family, my neighbors, and my community are on the line. Anything other than the covering of i5 and the implementation of congestion tolling is a death sentence for the people in the communities surrounding the freeway. ODOT's ongoing pattern of prioritizing capital over communities should be criminal, and those responsible should be held accountable. The time has long since past to make our government organizations work for us. ODOT can not continue like this. |
| 7542 | Virginia M. | Feldman | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As someone who worked in the north Portland area around the Rose Quarter Freeway expansion plans, I stand up and demand climate action, restorative justice, and cleaner air for the Albina neighborhood. There has to be a REAl environmental Impact Statement, rather than glitzy pamphlets saying who wonderful it is for the neighborhood without real facts. The people living in this area have received decades of bad air. Let's not make it worse with this expansion.Dr Ginny Feldman, MD FAAP |
| 7543 | Jane | Vail | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a professional engineer, I am disgusted that ODOT is spending money on highly unneccesary lanes without proper consideration of impacts on the environment and the people. I know more about this project than I want to, and from what I understand, ODOT has progressed far into design, having spend hundreds of thousands of my taxpayer money on a project that does not have full support of the community it serves. In this era where climate change and air quality are on everyone's minds, to be adding another lane is absurd. To actually be designing another lane while not even completing an EIS is adding insult to injury. Sincerely, Jane Vail, P.E. |
| 7544 | John | Reeves | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am against this project until ODOT conducts an environmental impact statement for the freeway expansion. It seems ludicrous that we would be expanding freeways as this is in direct contradiction of our espoused climate goals. We do not need to widen the freeway there, period. It isn't needed. Further, the proposed plans for the off ramp changes will have a double impact, causing increased traffic on minor roads in the area and making a current bicycle and pedestrian highway on Williams one of the most dangerous areas in the city. I bike through that area regularly because we simply don't have other ways through. If we are serious about meeting any sort of climate goal we need to be improving pedestrian and bike safety, not turning this area into a death trap. I do believe we need to cover the freeway in this area. This is a clear win and something that should go ahead, but not along with more lanes. |
| 7545 | Monique | Gaskins | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is extremely irresponsible that ODOT has not conducted an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Now is the time to invest in transportation methods that won't increase pollution, negatively impact historically black neighborhoods, encroach upon a school, and contribute to climate change. Now is the time to be accountable for our infrastructure investments and their impact on on our communities. I expect ODOT to conduct a full EIS, and find alternatives to spending a billion dollars of tax payer's money on a freeway expansion. |
| 7546 | Alex | Parise | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Air quality in NE Portland is already spotty and varies widely by neighborhood, and any increase in vehicle traffic in the I5 corridor will only decrease the quality. Seriously, we've been talking about air quality almost non-stop for the last 3 years because of COVID and now we're just going to expand a freeway without doing an air quality impact survey? It's absurd that this is even being considered. Do the study. |
| 7547 | NMR | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/nhtsa-releases-2020-traffic-crash-data | |
| 7548 | Joshua | Peterson | To Whom it May Concern, Please find attached Rip City Management s Response to the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. Feel free to reach out with any questions. Thank You, JOSH A PETERSON, AIA Associate Principal, LEED API-5 ROSE QUARTER SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT RESPONSE Prepared for Rip City Management in conjunction with GBD Architects Incorporated, Sunrise Transportation Strategies LLC., & Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt January 04, 2023I. INTRODUCTION As the operator of the largest and busiest event venue in the State of Oregon, Rip City Management (RCM) is a key stakeholder in improvements to I-5 through the Rose Quarter (I-5/RQ project). Unfortunately, RCM was excluded from the design process that developed the proposed Build Alternative (based on Hybrid Option #3) that is being reviewed via the Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA). RCM does not believe the proposed design addresses several aspects of the project purpose and need in a meaningful way for the entire area. Importantly, these failings would be evident if the SEA had complied with NEPA by evaluating potential alternative concepts to the proposed Build Alternative and by assessing the full slate of effects arising from the proposed Build Alternative. For that reason, and the Concerns noted below, RCM does not support the project as it is currently designed. RCM continues to support the community-led efforts that prompted ODOT to start the design refinement of Hybrid Option #3 in September of 2021. As an early advocate for repairing the damage created by installation of the Freeway, Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and Interstate Avenue, RCM seeks to participate in design revisions that align with the documented SEA purpose and need for all stakeholders. As a concerned stakeholder, RCM has actively pursued coordination with the design team since January of 2022 and continues to request modifications to the proposed Build Alternative that reflect the positive changes and impacts that should come out of generational infrastructure such as this. Unfortunately, ODOT is rushing through a Build Alternative that transfers a safety and traffic problem from I-5 to the Rose Quarter and then fails to analyze the direct and indirect effects in violation of the basic tenets of NEPA. If ODOT were to analyze the direct and indirect impacts that the proposed Build Alternative has on safety around the Rose Quarter or to analyze alternative on-ramp and off-ramp concepts as required by NEPA, it would be clear that the proposed Build Alternative creates significant safety issues. II. RIP CITY MANAGEMENT RCM operates the Rose Quarter complex including the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum. These facilities annually host about 1.7 million people, making them the largest event center in the state. RCM hosts over 250 events throughout the year, drawing vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists through the area. The Moda Center opened in the fall of 1995 as the Rose Garden, which remains an ongoing community icon in Portland. The arena serves as the home of the NBA s Portland Trail Blazers. In addition to basketball, the Rose Garden, and subsequently Moda Center, has played host to a wide variety of events such as concerts, family shows and other sporting events. The Rose Quarter was the host of the 2005 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. In 2009 & 2015 the first and second rounds of the men s NCAA basketball tournament were hosted at Moda Center. The Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a 12,000-seat arena that serves as the primary home for the WHL Winterhawks and served as the original home of the Trail Blazers. The arena opened in 1960 and was dedicated to serve as a memorial to veterans from all wars. The Veterans Memorial Coliseum currently hosts over 150 events per year, and has hosted the Beatles, Louis Armstrongand recently hosted major international events, such as the 2007 Davis Cup and President Obama s first campaign rally in Portland. As an integral part of this community that has daily experience with traffic through the area and the interaction of pedestrians, cyclists, public transit and vehicles, RCM believes that it is in the best interest of all involved to provide infrastructure upgrades that provide safe travel to, from, and through the district for all modes. The proposed Build Alternative design does not improve on transportation safety over existing conditions and, in fact, creates more potential for conflict and risk between all modes. The increases in conflicts and risk raises the potential for injuriesand deaths as a direct result of elements of the proposed Build Alternative configuration. Within this response letter, we will identify several locations that either maintain unsafe conditions that are similar to existing conditions, add conflict prone elements to already complicated areas, or fail to address the SEA purpose and need. III. NEPA REQUIREMENTS In developing the I-5 Rose Quarter improvements, including this supplemental environmental assessment, ODOT(and the federal agencies) must comply with NEPA. At a minimum, federal agencies must consider the environmental impacts of their decisions to ensure that environmental values are given "appropriate consideration"in the planning process. 42 U.S.C. § 4332. To comply with NEPA, the federal agency must take a "hard look" at theproposed action in accordance with NEPA's procedural requirements. Natural Res. Def. Council v. Morton, 458 F.2d827 (D.C. Cir. 1972); N. Plains Res. Council v. Surface Transp. Bd., 668 F.3d 1067 (9th Cir. 2011) (failing to take a hardlook at the various impacts of the proposed rail expansion). An agency must, in the NEPA review, analyze reasonably foreseeable effects of the decision, including downstream impacts. W. Org. of Res. Councils v. U.S. BLM,2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49635 (Dist. Mont. 2018). [G]eneral statements about possible effects and some risk do not constitute a hard look absent a justification regarding why more definitive information could not be provided. Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U.S. 332, 355, 109 S. Ct. 1835, 104 L. Ed. 2d 351 (1989). See also Baykeeper v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng rs, 2006 LEXIS 67483, 27 (E. Dist. Cal. 2006) (environmental assessment failed to meet minimum requirements of NEPA where the EA did not consider the additional vehicular traffic arising from the increased ship traffic from the proposed dredging activity). Where the impacts can be quantified, the agency must make the effort to quantify those impacts. See Ocean Advocates v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng rs, 402 F.3d 846, 868 (9th Cir. 2004); 350 Montana v. Bernhardt and Signal Peak Energy, 443 F. Supp. 3d 1185 (Dist. Mont. 2020) ( Given the severity of train derailments and the certainty with which they can be predicted, the Enforcement Office [OSMRE] should have addressed the risk under NEPA ). IV. CONCERNS Rip City Management was presented with a design concept based on the Hybrid Option 3 design concept for the I-5 Freeway Broadway/Weidler Interchange on June 21, 2022. By that time, this design concept had become the proposed SEA Build Alternative. At that meeting, ODOT project staff presented the design concept, discussed the preceding process that generated the concept, and outlined the anticipated schedule to meet upcoming project approval deadlines. The schedule presented by ODOT provided no opportunity for meaningful input. RCM fully supports community efforts to address damage done to the community by the original freeway construction and its associated supporting infrastructure. North of Broadway/Weidler, the proposed Build Alternative proposes a series of surface street improvements, including covers and new access across the freeway that will reduce the barrier-effect of the current infrastructure. Unfortunately, these improvements augmenting the freeway reconstruction come at the cost of the public spaces serving the Rose Quarter, where neither covers nor new access are proposed. After reviewing the proposed Build Alternative, RCM has serious concerns with the proposed design concept and its potential impacts to the eventvenues and public spaces. These concerns fall into three categories: 1. PEDESTRIAN/BICYCLE SAFETY AND ACCESS 2. EVENT OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT 3. DISTRICT CHARACTER AND REDEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL 1. PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE SAFETY AND ACCESS Over 50% of all attendees of events in the Rose Quarter arrive by walking, rolling, or riding. Today, the street spaceof the Broadway, Weidler, Williams, Vancouver and Victoria at the interchange area feels congested, compressed,and uncomfortable for non-motor vehicle users. The existing freeway ramps and street areas create known challenges and serious safety concerns for pedestrians and bicyclists trying to access events in the Rose Quarter. Alarmingly, a popular PBOT cycling route, active transit lines, and a pedestrian access point intersect at the existingfreeway on-ramp. The proposed Build Alternative adds neither substantive freeway crossings nor meaningful covers near the Rose Quarter to mitigate these existing risks. Instead, it adds another ramp terminal to the existing I-5 SB on-ramp at Ramsay/Williams/Wheeler, which introduces additional traffic through the area. ODOT s transportation safety evaluations have documented the existing on-ramp s configuration s risk and undesirable attributes, but fails to account for this additional risk, which is foreseeable and quantifiable. The failure of the SEA to analyze the additional traffic from the off-ramp fails to properly consider the project s environmental impacts. Today, there is only one double-turning movement from Broadway WB onto Williams NB to reach the existing I-5 NB on-ramp. The project proposes to add FOUR additional double turning movements serving the other three ramp terminals resulting from the complexity of the proposed new off ramp location. These new double turning movements are proposed at the intersections of Weidler and Victoria, Victoria and Broadway,Broadway and Vancouver, and Weidler and Williams. The relocated SB off ramp to the Ramsay/Wheeler intersection increases exposure for pedestrians and bicyclists to freeway-related traffic and the risk of crashes or accidents. This segment of Broadway/Weidler is already identified as part of the City of Portland s High Crash Network as one of the most dangerous intersections and street segments. The proposed Build Alternative concentrates freeway ramp traffic at Williams/Weidler. This intersectionand the Williams/Broadway intersection is already heavily trafficked with event-related pedestrian flows. Aproposed new double right turn at Williams/Weidler will increase crash risks for pedestrians and bicyclists. But, ODOT failed to analyze this effect in the SEA. Williams between Ramsay and Broadway is part of a critical north-south pedestrian/bicycle route for the city. The block between Weidler and Ramsay is currently low-volume and (compared to the other nearby options) attractive to pedestrians and bicyclists. The proposed relocated off ramp adds another ramp terminal to the existing I-5 SB on ramp.This requires pedestrians and bicyclists navigate two ramp terminals at this location. Users of the existing single bicycle crossing on the east side of Williams at the I-5 SB on-ramp terminal would be required to use pedestrian and bicycle crossings at the new terminal as well. This increases the pedestrian/bicyclist conflicts over the existing condition. And, ODOT failed to analyze this effect in the SEA. The SEA does not analyze effects on the Green Loop. The proposed Build Alternative requires the Green Loop route to the congested Broadway/Weidler corridor which is inconsistent with the Green Loop s envisioned character --comfortable walking, rolling riding for all ages and abilities. Routing the Green Loop as proposed in the Build Alternative increases the risk of pedestrian/bicycle conflicts with motor vehicle traffic. Forcing the Green Loop within Broadway and Weidler s combination of high traffic volumes (50,000 to 60,000 vehicles per day) and vehicle speeds,and streetcar routing is inconsistent with the other Green Loop facilities. The Green Loop on Broadway/Weidler will require users to navigate six freeway-related intersections (between Victoria and Vancouver). While the proposed Build Alternative incentives non-motorized vehicle traffic through the Rose Quarter it simultaneously creates dangerous intersections and danger zones. ODOT failed to analyze this effect in the SEA. The SEA has failed to properly consider alternative concepts that include greater east-west connectivity. A project goal is to improve connectivity across I-5 for all modes. The only proposed new east-west access across the freewayis at Hancock, some 400 feet north of Broadway. Though great for the neighborhood to the north, this single connection is too far away and out of direction for event-related pedestrians and bicyclists. In addition, Hancock terminates east and west at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Flint. Therefore, it will provide no traffic volume reduction on Broadway and Weidler in the 6-intersection cluster between Victoria and Vancouver. The new Hancock connection does not connect across I-5 to reestablish lower Albina as a center of the black identity and culture in Portland. (Independent Cover Assessment Page 17). ODOT failed to analyze concept alternatives in the SEA. 2. EVENT OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENTWithin the Rose Quarter, Rip City Management hosts some 200 events a year, with about 1.7M patrons visiting for sports, entertainment, and community events. These events create distinct traffic congestion issues. The proposed Build Alternative presents several major safety concerns related to the ingress and egress for these event patrons whether walking, rolling, riding, or driving. The SEA fails to analyze these effects. The relocated I-5 SB off ramp directs traffic onto a segment of Williams between Ramsay and Weidler greatly degrading the pedestrian/bicyclist quality of service. The existing segment is low-volume and offers a flexible, relatively comfortable connection for pedestrians and bicyclists coming to, passing through, and leaving event facilities. This flexible street space is critical for event management before and after events when large numbers of pedestrians are moving through the Wheeler / Williams / Ramsay intersection amongst a mixture of cars, bicyclists, and other vehicles. The proposed Build Alternative will consume this segment of Williams with off ramp traffic flowsand volumes, further limiting flexible street segments available at this critical location. The proposed ramp configuration adds new traffic to heavy event pedestrian flows. The proposed new intersection will limit event traffic management options and the ability to direct traffic efficiently before and after events. There located I-5 SB off ramp adds significant complexity and what appears to be limited turning movements from Ramsay EB and Wheeler NB onto Williams NB. Traffic management and flexibility at this intersection are criticalbefore and after events. Pedestrian flows are concentrated at this location and RCM event staff work diligently to direct pedestrians to crosswalk locations and discourage jaywalking among heavy vehicular traffic. The proposed Build Alternative negatively affects RCM pedestrian management abilities by expanding the number of crossings thatRCM event staff need to monitor. Options for managing inbound and outbound event traffic in the Rose Quarter are already limited. Within thetriangle framed by Wheeler, Ramsay and Vancouver/Center Court, RCM Event Staff make the best of limited controlover travel direction, lane capacity, garage entries, and the flow of pedestrians, bicyclists, and motor vehicles. Moving motor vehicles efficiently and effectively to and from on-site parking structures is essential for smooth event management operations and the safety of all modes. The proposed Build Alternative concentrates traffic flow butoffers no new infrastructure to address these challenges. Instead, it adds more freeway-related traffic to this zone, yet the SEA never analyzes the effects of the additional traffic and congestion. ODOT failed to analyze this effect inthe SEA. The SEA has failed to account for the increased adverse effects from adding the I-5 off-ramp. Leaving the I-5 SB on ramp in its current position continues and likely exacerbates existing known event operations issues. First, the existing on-ramp location directs freeway-bound traffic (that is much of the time accelerating) through the Ramsay/Williams/Wheeler intersection during event ingress and egress periods. The RCM already has limited options managing this traffic to mitigate on-going pedestrian safety issues. Second, the proposed Build Alternative proposes no improvements to the existing I-5 SB on-ramp and retains the existing weaving length and lane trap tothe I-84 EB off ramp. This creates risk of traffic queuing back to the ramp terminal intersection, further degrading operations for all users. The proposed Build Alternative worsens the configuration of the original 1960 s configuration that presently negatively impacts the safe operations and management of event-oriented traffic at theRamsay/Williams/Wheeler intersection. The SEA fails to assess the additional traffic through and onto the I-5 SB onramp. 3. DISTRICT CHARACTER AND REDEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL The proposed Build Alternative represents a significant public investment and infrastructure project that once constructed will exist for many generations to come. It must support a transformative future place, be resilient and adaptable as preferences and priorities change. Perhaps most importantly, the I-5 project should attract highdensity, mixed-use development to an area that has languished based on shortcomings of the existing roadway network and land use impacts caused by I-5 s original construction. The proposed Build Alternative exacerbates the unattractiveness to redevelopment at the Rose Quarter by doubling down on high traffic volumes and vehicle speeds, limiting development access locations, and general NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) issues associated with the freeway and Broadway/Weidler corridor. The character of Rose Quarter is generally unattractive and inhospitable to new development. The proposed Build Alternative does little to address the character south of Broadway. The proposed Build Alternative exacerbates the challenges to redevelopment by expanding the footprint of the freeway further into the Rose Quarter area. The proposed I-5 SB off ramp results in unintuitive circulation through four congested city street intersections. This creates significant wayfinding challenges for vehicles and dramatically increases risk of conflicts for pedestrians and bicyclists trying to navigate through the same series of intersections. These circulation characteristics reducere development potential. The SEA has failed to properly consider alternative concepts. No new covers are proposed at the Rose Quarter. The two new blocks created by the new covers nearest the Rose Quarter are significantly challenged by being small and partially-on-a-cover-partially-not, posing serious structural and architectural challenges for new buildings. In addition, the high freeway-related traffic volumes circulating around the two new blocks bounded by Broadway, Weidler, Vancouver and Victoria will severely limit opportunities for necessary building loading and service access points. The high vehicle volumes and speeds surrounding these blocks combined with little, if any, opportunity foron-street parking will reduce the attractiveness of these locations for ground-level businesses and redevelopment in general. ODOT failed to analyze concept alternatives in the SEA.V. ERRORS, OMISSIONS, AND INCONSISTENCIES IN THE SEA1. USE OF OUTDATED TRAFFIC DATA: ODOT makes it clear the technical work supporting the 2020 REA is the foundation of the technical work supporting the SEA and proposed Build Alternative: ODOT re-evaluated the Project changes and considered the differences of the Project compared to the design that was presented in the 2020 FONSIREA. This SEA supplements information presented in the 2020 FONSI REA with an evaluation of the impacts of the Revised Build Alternative compared to the No-Build Alternative. Yet, the 2020 Build Alternative has been invalidatedby the proposed Build Alternative. The technical work supporting the SEA is founded on the prior technical work from the 2020 FONSI REA. Any gaps in the original work remain gaps supporting the SEA. For example, the 2045 Traffic forecasts directly affect the traffic operations, safety, multimodal service, air quality, and noise analysis results. The 2020 REA s January 8, 2019 Traffic Analysis Technical Report uses data and projects associated with Metro s 2014 Regional Transportation Plan projectlist (Appendix 1.1 Final 2014 RTP Project List 8.5x11 for webpage_1.xls (live.com)). That list includes project 10893 Replacing the I-5 Interstate Bridge (Columbia River Crossing (CRC)). Yet, the CRC was shut down in June 2013. ODOT s base assumptions are founded on the CRC being completed. The abandonment of the CRC negates the traffic analysis results that supported the REA. Material components of the CRC included no light rail, and instead an emphasis on automobile traffic. This assumption contributed to potentially overly high traffic volumes being evaluated in the forecast year. The IBR assumes light rail and other assumptions different than the CRC and that could alter modal assumptions. The IBR is a completely different study with different assumptions use of the CRC-based forecasts therefore improperly skews the findings. Importantly, there was an approximate four-year gap between the stopped CRC and the IBR. That means the I-5/RQ project was advancing with flawed assumptions (and data that is over 8 years old), including the Independent Cover Assessment effort leading to the proposed Build Alternative. That the IBR began in 2019 is irrelevant as it is a completely different project that integrated light rail. This could potentially lower traffic forecasts. The fundamental assumptions supporting traffic operations, safety performance, multimodal quality of service, air quality, and noise analyses are fundamentally flawed making these elements of the SEA technical support invalid. 2. FLAWED STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PROCESS: The NEPA process was exclusive and did not engage a significant project stakeholder in RCM. As a major community stakeholder, RCM was not included nor meaningfully engaged in project review activities. RCM was contacted in early 2022 and the first kick off meeting with ODOT and the City was June 21, 2022. By the time RCM was included, ODOT (and the City) were focused on finalizing the proposed Build Alternative leading to the SEA (and not looking to get constructive input from RCM). The Executive Steering Committee (ESC) did not include RCM despite the Rose Quarter proximity, presence in the area, and direct impact of the Hybrid Option 3 recommendations that relieve SB I-5 at Vancouver by placing that burden at Ramsay. A key emphasis of the ICA was friends and neighbors with their charge being to understand the goals and objectives of stakeholders who have been impacted by the freeway within the larger Albina area, and the immediate the project area. RCM was not included in the workshops and discussions. These discussions led to a solution that met the Albina community interests and needs by moving the freeway ramp conflicts and issues to the Wheeler location but did not solve actual safety and traffic issues that had been noted in the 2019 Safety report ( relocating the I-5 SB on-ramp to N Weidler to provide a more direct connection and improve safety and operations. ) ODOT and the OTC advanced the NEPA activities with documented awareness of the risk having not engaged critical partners. They elected to advance the NEPA process knowing they had not engaged a key stakeholder (RCM) duringtheir activities. One of the stated ICA challenges of comparing Hybrid Option 3 with the BA was construction schedule. The ICA noted: ...the proposed project schedule does not account for significant, existing political risksthat could delay the schedule, i.e., some critical public partners, which the project needs to move forward, are not currently participating in project discussions. Nevertheless, ODOT initiated design work in September 2021 to advance the ICA Hybrid Option 3 concept. ODOT did not engage RCM as they conducted work in late 2021. By the time ODOT did engage RCM, ODOT had formulated its preferred plan (Hybrid Option 3) and had completed the Safety Supplemental Technical Report (August 15, 2022), the Active Transportation Supplemental Technical Report September 16, 2022, and the Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report September 26, 2022. All of these reports were completed during the period ODOT was meeting with RCM representatives under the premise of understanding and considering RCM interests. ODOT did not seriously begin assessing the concerns raised by RCM until after the November 15, 2022 SEA, and only as a result of an agency leadership meeting that directed two technical work sessions during December 2022. Those meetings made clear that ODOT had failed to provide the meaningful process required by NEPA. 3. IMPROPER MANIPULATION OF TRANSPORTATION SAFETY REPORTS: The SEA proclaims that its purpose is Unchangedfrom the 2020 FONSI REA, the purpose of the Project is to improve the safety and operations on I-5 between I-405and I-84, at the Broadway/Weidler interchange, and on adjacent surface streets in the vicinity of theBroadway/Weidler interchange, and to enhance multimodal facilities in the Project Area. In achieving the purpose, the Project also would support improved local connectivity and multimodal access in the vicinity of the Broadway/Weidler interchange and improve multimodal connections between neighborhoods east and west of I-5. The REA had falsely portrayed crash data and used that as a basis for project construction. The total crash numbers presented do not demonstrate a safety performance issue. The State of Oregon, the City of Portland, and othernational agencies implement safety initiatives based on fatal and severe injuries. Of the documented crashes,however, there were 0 fatalities and only 1% categorized as serious injury crashes (January 8, 2019 traffic safetyreport page 34). The REA notes that the complexity of the configuration of the I-5 Broadway/Weidler interchange and congestionmake it a difficult area to navigate for vehicles (including transit vehicles), cyclists, and pedestrians, affecting accessto and from I-5 as well as to and from local streets. The high volumes of traffic on I-5 and Broadway/Weidler in thi sarea contribute to congestion and safety issues (for all modes) at the interchange ramps, the Broadway and Weidler overcrossings of I-5, and on local streets in the vicinity of the interchange. Yet, the proposed Build Alternative provides no substantive changes to reduce the complexity of the interchange. It retains three of the four existing ramps and makes no changes to local roadway network in and around Broadway/Weidler in the project area. There located SB I-5 exit ramp is configured to direct traffic to Broadway/Weidler via Williams. The proposed Build Alternative provides no substantive reduction in the traffic volumes at the interchange compared to the no-build. The SEA provides no explanation as to why the proposed Build Alternative improves safety in this area versus the proposed alternative in the REA. 4. FAILURE TO MEET PROJECT GOALS: The SEA defines project goals beyond the purpose and need In addition to the purpose and need, which focus on the state s transportation system, the Project includesrelated goals developed through the joint ODOT and City of Portland N/NE Quadrant and I-5Broadway/Weidler Interchange Plan process, which included extensive coordination with other public agencies and citizen outreach. Goals may be carried forward beyond the NEPA process to help guide finaldesign and construction of the Project. Project goals are as follows: Enhance pedestrian and bicycle safety and mobility in the vicinity of the Broadway/Weidlerinterchange. Address congestion and improve safety for all modes on the transportation network connected to the Broadway/Weidler interchange and I-5 crossings. Improve freight reliability." "Provide multimodal transportation facilities to support planned development in the Rose Quarter, Lower Albina, and Lloyd." "Improve connectivity across I-5 for all modes. The proposed Build Alternative does not meet these goals. The Build Alternative provides no substantive changes to reduce the complexity of the interchange, provides no substantive reduction in the traffic volumes at the interchange compared to the no-build, retains the existing chronically challenging bike/auto interface at Williamsand the NB I-5 entrance ramp, and adds new double right or left turns at four locations. Furthermore, the proposed Build Alternative relocates the SB I-5 Exit ramp requiring freight destined to Lower Albina and Union Pacific industrials to route circuitously and confusingly through three new intersections via Williams and Broadway compared to the No build alternative (or the original alternative proposed in the REA). The proposed Build Alternative provides no new connections to Lower Albina compared to the No build alternative. It provides no newconnections to Lloyd district compared to the No build alternative. The proposed Build Alternative provides only one new connection across I-5 at Hancock St. Yet, Hancock St. has limited connectivity to the broader area because it terminates at Gantenbein Ave. and due to grades does not connect to Lower Albina/destinations west of Flint. Hancock to the east terminates at southbound MLK Blvd with no crossings to the east. 5. NO MEANINGFUL SAFETY BENEFITS: The Executive Summary, as intended, provides a high-level summary of an extensive environmental document. However, the summary subjectively highlights perceived project benefits and neglects to objectively address documented harms and concerns. The law on NEPA is clear: the analysis cannot weigh the benefits without presenting the counter vailing harms. The document perpetuates that the project is based on resolving safety issues when all supporting technical documentation clearly presents the existing conditions had 0% fatal and 1% severe crashes during the study period. The document incompletely states safety performance benefits while neglecting to summarize the documented lack of safety performance harms. In comments submitted by Oregon Metro for the 2019 Environmental Assessment, Metro noted issues with total crashes while neglecting fatal and severe crashes. The ODOT response to Metro comments presented in the 2020 FONSI REA was to restate summarized excerpts of the 2019 Transportation Safety report; the very same facts to which Metro noted were inadequate in documenting a safety performance need. NEPA does not allow ODOT to pick and choose safety data or fail to describe harms once it has chosen to highlight benefits. The SEA continues the myth presented in the 2020 FONSI REA how the proposed Build Alternative results insubstantive changes to the traffic volumes, patterns, and vulnerable user exposure at the Broadway/Weidler interchange. The proposed Build Alternative provides no meaningful roadway connections to reduce traffic volumes nor does the SEA describe how the relocated SB I-5 exit ramp adds the relocated traffic to problem intersections in the interchange. The SEA does not assess the effects of additional car and freight relocated through these same intersections and the contribution to crash risk and severity for vulnerable users. These are quantifiable metrics that ODOT has failed to meaningfully evaluate in the SEA as required by NEPA.The SEA perpetuates a story the cover adds to the roadway network. The proposed cover retains all roadways in place today and in the No Build alternative. The one added roadway at Hancock Street provides no connections west of Flint nor does it provide a connection across MLK Jr. Boulevard. The cover does not alleviate traffic or crash risks. The SEA dismisses the disbenefits of removing the Clackamas pedestrian/bicyclist crossing that was included in the 2020 FONSI REA and retaining the existing SB I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler. The 2019 transportation safety andactive transportation evaluations used the undesirable and high-risk condition as the basis for relocating that ramp to Weidler and constructing the separate crossing to provide route options to the high traffic segments and intersections of the along Broadway/Weidler. The SEA now proposes retaining the previously noted undesirable ramp and adds a second ramp connection at the same, problematic location. Yet the SEA does not evaluate the increased safety and traffic risks in violation of NEPA. Executive Summary Section Page Comment ES ES-1 First paragraph, eleventh sentence states: At the conclusion of the reevaluation, FHWA and ODOT agreed that the design changes required additional analyses beyond what was presented in the REA, and FHWA rescinded the FONSI on January 18, 2022. The SEA has not adequately addressed technical issues documented in support of the 2020 FONSI REA. As the SEA is founded on supplementing the technical evaluations of the 2020 FONSI REA, gaps in the 2020 FONSI REA technical must be addressed in the 2022 SEA. The Transportation safety Supplemental Technical Report has not addressed the lack of documented fatal and serious injury crashes missing from the January 2019 technical report. Similarly, there are significant gaps and inconsistencies regarding active transportation safety risk documented in the 2019 Active Transportation Technical report and the September 2022 Active Transportation Supplemental Technical Report. ES ES-2 First paragraph, fourth sentence notes the project is to improve safety. There is no documented fatal and severe crash pattern on I-5. The 2019 Transportation Safety Technical Report (Figure 11 I-5 Corridor Crashes based on Severity (2011-2015)) documented 0% fatal and 1% serious injury crashes. The 2019 report and 2022 supplement provided no documentation of quantitative safety performance (crash frequency and severity) between the proposed Build and No Build alternatives. Each document defaults to repeating nominal safety facts regarding shoulder widths. The AASHTO s 2010 Highway Safety Manual, First Edition emphasizes safety performance should be based on long term expected crashes. The Highway Safety Manual evaluations supporting the 2020 REA did not demonstrate safety performance benefits. The VISSIM evaluations of hard braking has no technical validity and is an inappropriate use of a traffic operations modeling tool. The technical gaps of the 2020 efforts remain in the 2022 SEA as the REA work is the foundation for the SEA. The REA, upon which the SEA is based, is deficient in addressing increased crash risk to vulnerable users. The SEA proposed Build Alternative increases the risk of pedestrian and bicyclist crashes by relocating the SB I-5 exit ramp terminal intersection. The SEA safety report is silent on pedestrian and bicycle risk documented in the 2019 report of the existing SB I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler. The 2019 report notes pedestrian safety concerns as the basis for relocating the SB I-5 entrance ramp to Weidler. The SEA proposed Build Alternative retains the documented high-risk SB entrance ramp and adds an additional ramp at that location. ES ES-2 The SEA is deceptive in describing the proposed shoulders and auxiliary lanes. The first paragraph, sixth sentence states thee elements provide vehicles additional space to accelerate or decelerate safely when merging on or off I-5 . This is false since the proposed entrance and exit ramp terminals remain essentially in their No Build location. Adding a through lane in the project area reduces vehicle flow density and increases travel speeds. The project retains the existing two-sided weaving section between the SB I-5 Wheeler entrance ramp and the EB I-84 exit ramp that is an ODOT-documented operationally deficient freeway segment. The additional SB lane in this area increases crash risk during the time before and after peak periods by supporting higher freeway speeds next to the weaving traffic. The two-sided weaving section originally constructed in the 1960s will continue to exhibit the same slowing and lane changing. Higher speeds associated with speed shear with the new mainline lane increases the risk for severe crashes between the high-speed through and slow speed merging/diverging traffic destined to EB I-84. Neither the REA or 2022 SEA documents added lane changes that will degrade traffic operations in both I-5 directions and increase crash risk on SB I-5. The SEA proposed Build Alternative creates new lane drops on NB I-5 at Greeley and SB I-5 at the Morrison bridge. These lane drops create new, additional lane changing over the No Build condition. SB I-5 lane changing to avoid the lane drop at the Morrison bridge occurs where 55 crashes were reported in the 2019 report (Figure 18). This SB segment has 3.4 times as many crashes as the 16 crashes reported for NB roadway in the same segment. ES ES-2 The SEA deceptively overstates the benefits of the cover and its contribution to network connectivity. The first paragraph, tenth sentence states the cover will reconnect neighborhood streets and the connected streets improve travel for people . The project retains all existing streets while adding ONE new segment on Hancock Street that does not make any connections past Flint. The cover provides land use opportunities with negligible benefits for local street connectivity. The project removes the proposed new and additional pedestrian/bicyclist bridge at Clackamas St. ES ES-3 The SEA discriminately notes project benefits without equal presentation of critical issues and project risks. The first bullet describes improved bicycle facilities. Improved is a subjective term. The bullet does not present the fact the project adds new locations of double right and left turns at the relocated SB exit ramp and on Broadway, Weidler, and Victoria. The SEA ignores the proposed Build Alternative retains the existing SB entrance ramp that had been noted as configuration that increased crash risk for vulnerable users. The SEA ignores the proposed Build Alternative adds a new ramp at that problematic location and eliminates the formerly proposed Clackamas pedestrian/bicyclist bridge. ES ES-3 The Executive Summary ignores the fact I-5 has no fatal or severe crash problem and implies poor safety performance is a basis for project need. The third bullet discusses crash rate for total crashes as a metric while national, state, and city performance measures are for fatal and severe crashes. The SEA perpetuates the false impression safety performance is an issue while not providing quantitative safety performance analysis results from AASHTO s Highway Safety Manual, First Edition documenting how the project is substantively beneficial compared to the No Build. ES ES-3 The SEA deceptively and erroneously implies the project would reduce traffic at the Broadway/Weidler interchange. The fifth bullet notes high volumes of traffic without noting there are no local roadway network additions that will provide route choices that could reduce interchange volumes. The SEA ignores stating the relocated SB I-5 exit ramp adds new traffic volumes and patterns the Broadway/Weidler interchange. ES ES-5 The SEA implies there would be a reduced number of local streets under the No Build when all existing streets crossing I-5 are retained in the No Build. The first paragraph, eleventh sentence discusses reconnected streets as if the cover is adding streets beyond Hancock. The cover creates land use opportunities but provides NO local street network benefit beyond Hancock. If desired, Hancock could be constructed without the I-5 Rose Quarter Project. ES ES-6 The SEA states an undocumented and unsubstantiated crash frequency reduction and neglects sharing facts about similar or worse expected safety performance of the proposed SB I-5 exit ramp. The third paragraph notes new ramp to ramp connections are expected to reduce the frequency of crashes by up to 50 percent. There is no documentation provided in the 2019 nor 2022 transportation safety reports that support this 50 percent statement. Page 28, second paragraph of the 2022 supplemental safety report states the Highway Safety Manual analysis evaluation revealed ..the I-5 southbound exit ramp between the No-Build and Build conditions have similar forecast crash rates. Further, in that same paragraph discussing the relocated SB I-5 exit ramp, the report states Based on the HSM, the forecast crash rate at this location would be approximately 13 % higher than the No-Build and Build condition. ES ES-6 The SEA continues to misstate the relationship of the highway cover and benefits it provides on the local street network. The cover has no substantive contribution to the local street network. The last paragraph states there is an opportunity to reconnect the street grid in the Albina area The proposed Build Alternative retains all existing bridges and adds only one new roadway segment at Hancock Street, which does not connect to lower Albina. Further, that same paragraph falsely states The highway cover in the Revised Build Alternative would connect streets that are currently divided by I-5. This statement is false and misleading. ES ES-7 Many of the bullet on this page continue to repeat inaccurate or inflated project benefits and neglecting project issues documented in technical reports. These points are repeated in bullets 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8. ES ES-8 and 9 The bullet list of the most likely impacts does not include a discussion of the adding a new SB I-5 exit ramp at the location of the existing SB I-5 entrance ramp increases crash risk for vulnerable users nor how the rerouted traffic contributes to and exacerbates documented adverse conditions at the Broadway/Weidler interchange. The omission includes how the Clackamas crossing eliminated pedestrian/bicyclist conflicts and reduced exposure of pedestrians/bicyclists who would not have to traverse the congested Broadway/Weidler interchange area. ES ES-10 Under How has the public been involved in this Project? discussion, the SEA is silent on gaps and deficiencies of outreach to key partners since the beginning of the Independent Cover Assessment that commenced in January 2020. Failures to engage critical project stakeholders represents a major flaw in ODOT s refinement of the proposed Build Alternative. RCM -- the operators of the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum event facilities were not included in the ICA effort nor where they engaged as ODOT begin detailing Hybrid Option 3 during the summer of 2021. ODOT did not engage Rip City Management until June 2022. ODOT completed a number of supplemental technical reports published with the SEA during while supposedly considering and assessing input provided that could potentially enhance the negative effects of relocating the SB I-5 exit ramp. ES ES-11 ODOT s conduct of the ICA at the direction of the Oregon Transportation Commission excluded RCM, a key project stakeholder directly and negatively impacted by the ICA recommendations. In the second full paragraph, fourth line states the ICA effort involved local Project stakeholders including Metro, Multnomah County, City of Portland, Portland Public Schools, Albina Vision Trust, and the Oregon Transportation Commission. RCM, the operators of the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum had no opportunity to contribute to ICA discussions as Hybrid Option 3 proposed relocating the SB I-5 exit ramp. The proposed ramp relocation increases vulnerable user safety performance, degrades event traffic management, and hinders district redevelopment and community character enhancement opportunities. 6. FLAWED ASSESSMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY REPORTS: THE SEA MISREPRESENTS FREEWAY SAFETY PERFORMANCE AND OVERSTATES POTENTIAL SAFETY BENEFITS OF THE FREEWAY PROJECT ELEMENTS. THE FREEWAY PROJECT INCREASES PEDESTRIAN/BICYCLIST EXPOSURE AND CRASH RISK ASSOCIATED WITH THE EXISTING CONDITION AND PROPOSED CONFIGURATION OF THE WHEELER/RAMSAY I-5 EXIT AND ENTRANCE RAMP TERMINAL INTERSECTION AND TWO OTHER LOCATIONS. The SEA is supported by technical evaluation results. The August 15, 2022 Transportation Safety Supplemental Report augments the January 8, 2019 Transportation Safety Technical Report. The 2019 report is based on the Build Alternative presented in the 2020 FONSI REA and is intended to address differences between the 2020 Build Alternative and 2022 SEA Build Alternative. Gaps or deficiencies of the 2019 safety document carry through as support for the 2022 supplemental safety document. The 2019 report documents safety evaluation benefits inconsistent with the 2010 AASHTO Highway Safety Manual, First Edition by reporting nominal safety of the various proposed shoulder widths on I-5. Nominal safety is an outdated concept that assesses safety performance benefits by achieving a design standard value. The Highway Safety Manual emphasizes applying quantitative safety performance considering crash prediction models and crash modification factors. The 2019 report also misuses a traffic operations evaluation tool (VISSIM) as a safety surrogate model. VISSIM is a microscopic multi-modal traffic flow simulation software package that has been inappropriately used to report purported safety benefits. The Highway Safety Manual evaluations used were appropriate and documented no substantive safety performance benefits of the project. The SEA is flawed to the extent it relies on a design standard value and surrogate safety model. The 2019 and 2022 reports are absolute in demonstrating ODOT falsely continues to promote this major freeway construction project to address safety performance issues (Executive Summary page ES-1, second paragraph: The purpose of the Project is to improve the safety and operations on I-5 between I-405 and I-84, ODOT ). The 2019 Transportation Safety Technical Report documents 0% fatal and 1% serious injury crashes on I-5. Consistent with federal, state, and regional policies focusing on prioritizing spending to eliminate fatal and serious crashes. The safety reports document 99% of documented crashes are not fatal and severe crashes (Figure 11 2019 report). The proposed Build Alternative provides less benefit than that of the 2020 FONSI REA and the benefits diminish over time. The proposed Build Alternative provides limited benefits over existing conditions. The 2022 report documents the Build Alternative will have reduced median shoulder widths in some areas compared to the 2020 plan. The 2022 report (Figures 9 and 10) presents how the Revised Build provides inconsistent shoulder widths that vary along the corridor. This includes retaining various degrees of reduced inside shoulder through the project area. The spacing between the existing north and southbound ramps is documented in the SEA as a factor that may contribute to safety and operational issues. The proposed Build Alternative does not substantively change weaving distances over the No Build alternatives. Freeway performance associated with the locations of the proposed Build Alternative fails to address and retains the existing two-sided weaving section between the SB-I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler and the EB exit to I-84. The 2019 report highlights this as a priority roadway segment (Pages ES-1 and ES-2) and yet an added SB lane is all that is proposed versus addressing the two-sided weaving section as proposed at the I-5 NB exit to Broadway to address the complementary weaving section from I-84 WB. The 2019 and 2022 reports note issues with the existing SB I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler. The 2019 transportation safety and active transportation evaluations used the undesirable and high-risk condition as basis for relocating that ramp to Weidler. SEA now proposes retaining the previously noted undesirable ramp while adding the relocated SB I-5 ramp terminal intersection to the same, problematic location. The 2022 report (Page 27, second paragraph) states that based on the Highway Safety Manual evaluation, the forecast crash rate at this location would be approximately 13 % higher than the No Build and Build condition. The SEA provides no justification or explanation for retaining the SB I-5 on ramp at Ramsey Way, and utterly fails to explain how adding the SB I-5 off ramp will not significantly increase the crash rate at this location. Transportation Safety Supplemental Technical Report (August 15, 2022) Section Page Comment ES 1 Third paragraph, first sentence notes the largest safety benefit of the proposed Project results from widening shoulders for the majority of the corridor on both sides of the highway as compared to the No-Build Alternative. There is no documented fatal and severe crash pattern on I-5. The 2019 Transportation Safety Technical Report (Figure 11 I-5 Corridor Crashes based on Severity (2011-2015)) documented 0% fatal and 1% serious injury crashes. The 2019 report and 2022 supplement provided no documentation of quantitative safety performance (crash frequency and severity) between the Build and No Build alternatives. Each document defaults to repeating nominal safety facts regarding shoulder widths. The AASHTO s 2010 Highway Safety Manual, First Edition emphasizes safety performance should be based on long term expected crashes. The Highway Safety Manual evaluations supporting the 2020 REA did not demonstrate safety performance benefits. The VISSIM evaluations of hard braking has no technical validity and is an inappropriate use of a traffic operations modeling tool. The technical gaps of the 2020 efforts remain in the 2022 SEA as the REA work is the foundation for the SEA. The REA, upon which the SEA is based, is deficient in addressing increased crash risk to vulnerable users. The proposed Build Alternative increases the risk of pedestrian and bicyclist crashes by relocating the SB I-5 exit ramp terminal intersection. The SEA safety report is silent on pedestrian and bicycle risk documented in the 2019 report of the existing SB I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler. The 2019 report notes pedestrian safety concerns as the basis for relocating the SB I-5 entrance ramp to Weidler. The proposed Build Alternative retains the documented high-risk SB entrance ramp and adds an additional ramp at that location. ES 1 Fourth paragraph, first sentence says under the Revised Build Alternative, the majority of the local street intersections in the area would have largely the same performance as under the No-Build Alternative This is inconsistent with the stated Project Purpose and Need (Section 1.4 SEA): Unchanged from the 2020 FONSI REA, the purpose of the Project is to improve the safety and operations on I-5 between I-405 and I-84, at the Broadway/Weidler interchange, and on adjacent surface streets in the vicinity of the Broadway/Weidler interchange, and to enhance multimodal facilities in the Project Area. This represents a degradation in risk compared to the 2020 FONSI REA. The 2019 report noted benefits of the Clackamas bridge and removing Wheeler SB entrance ramp: The Project may decrease the risk of crashes at N Weidler/N Vancouver (due to decreased exposure for bicyclists) and N Wheeler/N Williams (formerly NE Wheeler)/N Ramsay Way (due to decreased exposure for motorists and decreased complexity). The bridge would allow pedestrians to bypass at least two intersections, reducing overall pedestrian exposure. there is an expected decrease in motorized vehicle crashes due to ramp relocation/removal of fifth leg, which decreases traffic volumes (therefore reducing exposure for motorists) and decreases intersection complexity (improves user experience by making intersection configuration more familiar and easier to navigate) The Build Alternative in the SEA should re-introduce the Clackamas Bridge and simplify the SB I-5 entrance ramp at Wheeler/Ramsay. ES 3 and 4 The last sentence page 3 and first paragraph page 4 state: The intersections of N Weidler Street/N Williams Transportation Safety Avenue and NE Wheeler Avenue/N Williams Avenue/N Ramsay Way may see more crashes due to increased complexity of the intersections and more traffic traveling through those intersections. The intersection of N Broadway/N Williams Avenue may see an increase in exposure between the pedestrians/bikes and the westbound traffic This is also inconsistent with the stated project Purpose and Need. 4.3 16 First paragraph. The discussion focuses on crash rate versus fatal and severe crashes. This is inconsistent with national, state, and local safety planning practice Vision Zero or Toward Zero Death objectives. 4.3 16 and 17 Last and first paragraphs note using the appropriate Highway Safety Manual predictive crash analysis and the inappropriate and technically unsubstantiated VISSIM-based emergency braking event as safety performance tool. 6.2 28 Second paragraph, 8th sentence discusses the HSM analysis for the reconfigured SB I-5 exit ramp to Wheeler/Ramsay. It states the analysis results indicated the forecast crash rate at this location would be approximately 13 % higher than the No-Build... This crash risk is for the reconfigured ramp only and is in addition to the degraded conditions and increased crash risk for vulnerable users at the proposed, complex intersection configuration caused by adding the new exit ramp to the existing entrance ramp 6.2 30 The proposed Build Alternative does not meet the project Purpose and Need for enhancing multimodal facilities in the project area. Second paragraph and bullets. The document notes degraded local street multimodal conditions at NE Weidler Street / N Williams Avenue because the proposed project would increase the traffic volume in the Revised Build Alternative compared to No-Build. At NE Wheeler Avenue / N Williams Avenue / N Ramsay Way, the project would increase the traffic volume, thus increasing exposure to all modes of transportation traveling through this intersection. This intersection would be one of the most complex intersections within the Project Area. To mitigate these multiple conflicts, the intersection design considers dual right turns to be signalized At N/NE Broadway / N Williams Avenue, the revised Build Alternative configuration would have three westbound through lanes from two in the No-Build Alternative which might increase the exposure between bicyclists, pedestrian, and the motor-vehicle traffic. VI. IN SUMMARY Rip City Management (RCM) does not support the revised Build Alternative as presented in the SEA. As previously noted, the benefits of the Hybrid Option 3 design concept come at the considerable cost of compromised pedestrian and bicycle safety, unintuitive and circuitous traffic patterns and a reduction in the attractiveness of the area to redevelopment. The failure to assess these traffic and safety effects is a clear violation of NEPA. RCM firmly believes that meaningful improvements can be made to the Hybrid Option 3 design concept that address both the objectives of the community as well as the specialized needs of the State s most active event district. By failing to assess other concept alternatives, the SEA violates a central tenet of NEPA. RCM understands that the Hybrid Option 3 concept was intended to be the beginning, and not the end, of design work for this interchange. This project presents a rare venue to address many existing safety, management and redevelopment challenges with the freeway and the related local street network. ODOT cannot, however, progress the revised Build Alternative under this flawed and deficient SEA. As the project represents a significant investment in public infrastructure that will be a part of the community for generations to come, RCM looks forward to future opportunities with ODOT, the City of Portland, Metro, and the community to develop the best outcome of this freeway project for Portland. RCM is committed to community values and interests and continues to be champion of resolving issues caused by I- 5 that negatively impact the Albina community. RCM supports expanding and maximizing redevelopment opportunities for the community and seeks an I-5 project that maximizes the value of the capital investment. RCM would like to be a project champion and looks forward to meaningful opportunities to discuss positive changes in the project layout to promote Albina community benefits that also meet the unique needs of the Rose Quarter area. Sincerely, CHRIS OXLEY SVP, Government Affairs and Strategic Initiatives PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS / ROSE QUARTER |
| 7549 | Jen | Harrison | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Before attending the testimonial hearing on Jan 3rd, I was on the fence about the question of whether or not to expand I-5 at the Rose Quarter. Alberta/Swan Island, Exit #303 is my exit to get home and I do get tired of the traffic congestion in this area. But once I listening to many perspectives on the subject I've become totally convinced that ODOT should not do this project. Here are my reasons: 1. Any scientist expert can tell you that need to move away from fossil fuels. We need to rethink how we travel. 2. The cost is too high. With the $1.45 billion we could improve public transportation from so many angles. 3. Adding lanes will increase traffic and therefore CO2 emissions in an already polluted city. 4. Major disruption to the neighborhood with little gain. 5. Safety issues between pedestrians and motor vehicles.What do you want your legacy to be? More of the same polluting, dangerous means of travel or a cleaner, more sustainable approach. Put the high traffic time tolls in now to lessen traffic and spend money fixing the growing pot hole problem around Portland. Thank you for your time. |
| 7550 | Michael | Boyles | Good morning,I'm a resident of NE Portland, work near the Rose Quarter, a motorist, bicyclist, transit rider, and pedestrian, and therefore have a vested interest in the outcome of the I-5 Rose Quarter project. I have comments on several topics that I would like to voice as the environmental assessment is completed and the decision to go forward with the project is made. First, I would like to say that I am encouraged by the inclusion of a larger covering that has the potential to reclaim some land for use and development by the community from transportation use. Still, several things concern me on the topic of land use. First, the 1.8 acres needed to be converted from commercial to transportation ROW negates some of the positive impact of the cover. Also, the restrictions on development for structural safety limit the amount of value the city can make of that reclaimed land. Finally, it is hard to imagine that the reclaimed land would be able to meet its full potential as the freeway noise pollution impacts land users on the cover. I would like to see a more in-depth analysis of the socioeconomic impacts, both positive and negative, of the proposed cover. Second, the bicyclist and pedestrian safety of the revised Broadway/Weidler interchange is very worrying. While I am happy that the I-5 SB off ramp was removed from the Broadway/Vancouver intersection, its relocation to Ramsey/Wheeler/Williams further complicates an already complicated, dangerous, and confusing intersection and increases the traffic present immediately adjacent to the Moda Center, a large event space with significant pedestrian traffic. I do not believe this move is in the true interest of public safety and will not create a safer space for non-motorists to travel. The proposal also does nothing to address the confusion and dangerous intersections for the I-5 NB on- and off-ramps. These areas are difficult even for motorists to navigate, let alone more vulnerable road users, and represent significant barriers to the adoption of multimodal transportation options in the area. I would like to see additional work go into making the interchange safer for the community using it. At a minimum, I would like to see consideration for removing the interchange entirely, making I-5 solely through traffic in the Rose Quarter. Finally, I am disappointed by the draft SEA's pronouncement that no long-term indirect traffic effects are expected due to the inclusion of auxiliary lanes. That's a patently ridiculous proposition, as the additional lanes will of course increase the carrying capacity of the freeway, and the "improved operations" will, by the author's own admission, reduce congestion and increase throughput through the Rose Quarter. This of course will in turn encourage people to drive through the area, as generally travelers will take the quickest and most convenient route to a destination, and increasing the speed and convenience of the freeway will induce others to use it. The traffic analysis must be redone to include the increased capacity of the freeway and the indirect impacts to air quality, climate change, noise, etc. must be taken into account. I am sending copies of this comment to various elected and appointed political leaders to urge them to withdraw support for the I-5 Rose Quarter Project pending a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts. Sincerely, Michael Boyles |
| 7551 | William | Cole | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The increase in freeway size could be potentially devastating to our environment with noise and exhaust pollution, as well as added damage caused by increased traffic accidents. Due diligence review is needed to assess the impact before deciding on pulling the trigger |
| 7552 | Sofia | Zarfas | Hi I want to express my concern that no official public forum was conducted for this project. How are we supposed to inform you of our concerns and ask questions as to why this project is even happening? I am against this project, and would rather you spend money on other projects that focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety. How on Earth Can congestion be improved when you are unable to expand the bridge to 5 lanes? Congestion will continue to happen because you have badly designed roads, making more of these roads will not help the situation. Sofia Zarfas |
| 7553 | Steven | Rosen | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT subject the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion to the same standards of engagement, environmental analysis, nitpicking, and obstruction as it gives to bicycle lanes, sidewalks, trails, public transit, and every other project that would make the city and the world a better place to live. Unlike the beneficial projects that are studied until they die, a freeway expansion will increase vehicle miles traveled, increased GHG emission, increase injury and death from traffic violence, impose disease on the local neighborhoods through air and noise pollution, impose local ecological impacts through brake and tire particle runoff, and worsen the division and separation of the neighborhoods through which it runs.Do your job and study the impacts like you're supposed to. If it helps get you in the mindset, pretend the project is a light rail line.My comments are now on the administrative record, so address them in the EIS, or you'll be addressing them in front of the judge. |
| 7554 | Josie | Moberg |
Good morning I-5 Rose Quarter Project Team, Attached is a letter on behalf of the Breach Collective legal team against the proposed expansion. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Best, Josie -- Josie Moberg (she/they) Climate Justice Movement Legal Fellow Date: Wed, Jan. 4th 2023 RE: Rose Quarter Improvement Project Supplemental Environmental Assessment Comment Period Dear Project Manager, Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Project, Breach Collective is an Oregon-based climate nonprofit organization that partners with communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. We provide strategic and legal support to locally-driven campaigns and together work towards a more just society. We re writing to you today supporting the community s calls for an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion (RQFE). We understand that the purported goals of the FQFE are a high priority for the state government. We assure you that we too want to reduce car and truck traffic congestion and improve safety for local residents who are at-risk of the freeway s many hazards. Unfortunately the core strategy of this project is misguided as a solution to these serious problems.1 Scientific and economic studies repeatedly demonstrate that increasing lanes might temporarily reduce congestion, but ultimately just increases car-users up to the new holding capacity of the freeway.2 This dynamic also implicates the second purported goal of the RQFE, public health and safety. Increasing the total number of vehicles (and therefore, emissions) is not something the communities surrounding the area need or want. Regardless of any added safety or buffer infrastructure between the lives of North Portland residents and this large, dangerous, and polluting freeway, amplifying the original problem the freeway itself is the wrong answer. The bottom line is that this project will increase vehicle miles traveled, which is associated with increased air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic runoff into local neighborhoods and waterways. Reducing traffic congestion is often proposed as a solution for improving fuel efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Traffic congestion has traditionally been addressed by adding additional roadway capacity via constructing entirely new roadways, adding additional lanes to existing roadways, or upgrading existing highways to controlled-access freeways. Numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of this approach and consistently show that adding capacity to roadways fails to alleviate congestion for long because it actually increases vehicle miles traveled (VMT). An increase in VMT attributable to increases in roadway capacity where congestion is present is called induced travel . The basic economic principles of supply and demand explain this phenomenon: adding capacity decreases travel time, in effect lowering the price of driving; and when prices go down, the quantity of driving goes up. Induced travel counteracts the effectiveness of capacity expansion as a strategy for alleviating traffic congestion and offsets in part or in whole reductions in GHG emissions that would result from reduced congestion. There is also the serious and unaddressed issue of contribution to climate change, given that almost half (40%) of Oregon's carbon emissions already come from the transportation sector.3 The move to widen any freeway in the state, therefore expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, is quite frankly not an option in the minds of many Oregonians. It would be adding fuel to the flames of our climate-induced-burning state.4 Portland residents are counting on you to be responsive to the climate crisis and to course-correct transportation infrastructure investments. The RQFE project would be the exact opposite of such necessary change. Breach Collective is deeply concerned about the environmental injustices associated with this project as well. The freeway was originally built through the heart of a thriving Black community, destroying a robust business district, breaking physical community connections, and exposing the neighborhood to an ongoing source of noise and air pollution that damages human health.5 The proposed project could expose neighbors to more of these hazards, which demands a thoughtful and complete review. While this project has the potential to help improve community outcomes through the creation of integrated and buildable freeway covers, the creation of lane miles below them undercuts any wins to be gained. Even if this project had actual benefits for traffic congestion or public safety, there are far more affordable ways of achieving those goals. According to the Oregon state government website,6 the RQFE could cost up to $1.45 billion. As public officials it is your duty to act as good stewards of limited tax dollars, not spending almost five times the total 2019-2021 Legislatively Adopted ODOT Program Budget for the Public Transit Division on a one-off freeway expansion project.7 Given the arguments laid out above, we are joining the many voices calling on ODOT and the OTC to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the I5 RQFE. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires an analysis of reasonable alternatives and the assessment of foreseeable consequences, both of which have not been seriously researched or made transparent to the public s satisfaction.8 Furthermore, Governor Brown s executive order on climate change called for actual results regarding the already-adopted strict emissions targets for the state and directed all state agencies, commissions, and boards to take action to achieve the state climate goals.9 This includes prioritizing activities that reduce emissions and integrating climate change, climate impacts, and emissions goals into investments and policymaking. A full EIS is a critical component in understanding how the RQFE fits within this executive order, as an EIS requires a hard look at the cumulative impacts of the proposal along with all existing and reasonably foreseeable future development within the project area. This more holistic approach taken by an EIS creates improved policy, provides for the good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and will help correctly frame this project within the context of the climate crisis. In conclusion, Breach Collective stands with the many other Portlanders and Oregonians who have raised concerns about this project since its inception. The law has created the appropriate mechanism for this exact situation, and it is your duty to ensure the completion of a full Environmental Impact Statement before proceeding with the expansion plans. Thank you for your service and we look forward to much-needed reflection and changes to the project trajectory. Sincerely, Josie Moberg, Climate Movement Legal Fellow Nicholas Caleb, Climate and Energy Attorney 1 Susan Handy, Increasing Highway Capacity Unlikely to Relieve Traffic Congestion, UC Davis: National Center for Sustainable Transportation (2015), available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/58x8436d, 2 Id. 3 Energy in Oregon Transportation, OREGON DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, available at: https://www.oregon.gov/energy/energy-oregon/Pages/Transportation.aspx 4 Steve Lundeberg, Likelihood of extreme autumn fire weather has increased 40%, Oregon State modeling shows, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY (2022), available at: https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/likelihood-extreme-autumn-fire-weather-has-increased-40-oregon-state-modeling-shows 5 Geoff Norcross, A freeway once tore a Black Portland neighborhood apart. Can new infrastructure spending begin to repair the damage? OREGON PUBLIC BROADCASTING (2021), available at: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/29/federal-infrastructure-portland-albina-neighborhood/ 6 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement ProjectDesign Phase, OREGON DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, available at: https://www.oregon.gov/odot/projects/pages/project-details.aspx?project=19071 7 2019-2021 Legislatively Adopted ODOT Program Budget, OREGON DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, available at: https://www.oregon.gov/odot/About/Budget/ODOT%202019-21%20Legislatively%20Adopted%20Program%20Budget.pdf 8 42 U.S.C. 4321, available at: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/nepa_statute.pdf 9 Oregon Governor Executive Order 20-04, signed into law on March 10, 2020. |
| 7555 | Torsten | Anderson | This project is a bad use of resources and a step in the wrong direction. Under all of the greenwashing and add-ons I think this project offers few benefits for Portland locals and is in fact a poorly-concealed highway expansion. I'm concerned about potential dangerous high-speed intersections and higher traffic volumes crossing our busiest and most used bikeway at N. Wheeler and N. Williams. A common-sense and climate-aware alternative to this project would be congestion tolling on Interstate 5 and Interstate 405, with small-scale maintenance and safety improvements to shore up the infrastructure we have. |
| 7556 | Sara | Tometich | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The health of my family, my neighbors, and my community is at risk. Anything other than a freeway lid over i-5 and the implementation of congestion tolling is unacceptable because the alternative has been proven to be extremely harmful. The Eliot neighborhood, my community, should be able to trust the environmental impact studies done when considering freeway expansion. The community no longer trusts the intentions of this project. A statement must be made to give community members peace of mind. ODOT has been caught in a lie, and we deserve the truth. |
| 7557 | Marilyn | Costamagna | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: To Whom it may Concern:I am writing to strongly advocate for ODOT to study alternatives to freeway expansion by conducting a full Environmental Impact Statement. I think that the issue ultimately comes down to this question: What more will it take for ODOT to take bold action on cimate change.I do not not support ODOT s building additional lanes trough the Rose-quarter. I do recommend that a full EIS should be conducted. A study on the effects of congestion pricing must be included.In addition ODOT should Fix arterial highs in Portland [TV Highway, Barbur Blvd., Powell Blvd., McLoughlin] or transfer them to local control, Close excessive freeway on- and off- ramps that disrupt surface streets and render the surrounding blocks dangerous for pedestrian and cyclists.Say YES to the EIS!Thanking you in advance for your attention to this issue. |
| 7558 | Alex | Bauman | This Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) is not complete as it is lacking information that would allow the public to fully evaluate the environmental consequences of the project. Also, the Revised Build Alternative (RBA) is fatally flawed by the extremely sharp curve in the southbound off ramp and the prioritization of highway widening over the ability of the lids to support typical area development intensity. The project should not move forward until these issues are addressed.Page 28 of the Transportation Safety Supplemental Technical Report acknowledges that the radius of the curve in the southbound off ramp does not meet ODOT's safety standards, but it doesn't attempt to analyze the reasons for these standards and how the proposed mitigations (wider shoulders) would mitigate the deficiency. Indeed, a reasonable interpretation of the problem (two lanes of traffic coming off of a 55mph facility encountering a very tight curve that is only visible for maybe 100 feet) and their proposed solution (slightly widening the lanes). It will not help if the lane is 24 feet rather than 12 if someone is looking at their phone in half a second they get to determine how tightly to turn. More basically, what is the reason for ODOT's standard, and why is that not applicable or mitigated here? Another safety issue related to the southbound off ramp in the RBA that is not given thorough consideration in the SEA is the decrease in pedestrian/bicycle safety on "local" streets (e.g. Williams, Vancouver, Broadway, Weidler, etc) due to the increased vehicular traffic on those streets as a result of the RBA design. though page 30 of the Transportation Safety Supplemental Technical Report admits that "It is likely that the conflict between the dual northbound right-turns and pedestrian and bicyclists on the crosswalk would increase", this is true of all of the intersections that are likely paths of travel for vehicles exiting I-5, yet it isn't specifically discussed for those intersections. Nor is a realistic attempt made to project the level of pedestrian traffic under the RBA -- page 21 of the Transportation Safety Supplemental Technical Report projects lower pedestrian volumes in 2045 in the RBA despite the RBA proposing lids that would contain structures on 6 acres or so that are currently empty air over I-5. It is inappropriate to apply a regional travel demand model alone to project traffic on a project that proposes to increase buildable land; ODOT indicates on page 19 of the SEA that it has a sense of the limits to the development that could occur on the highway lids, so it should apply a land use derived traffic demand model to more accurately assess the RBA's impacts to bike/ped safety.The reason it's important to have a better assessment of the RBA's impacts to bike/ped safety is that safety is a primary goal of the project (page 5 SEA) and ODOT asserts that the RBA would improve safety (page 102 SEA). The SEA fails to discuss, however, how it balances bike/ped vs vehicular safety impacts. Considering that bike/ped crashes have a higher ethical and economic impact than vehicular crashes in the area (as most vehicular crashes are low-impact while most bike/ped crashes involve serious injury), there should be an evaluation of the impact on safety by mode. In the absence of analysis in the SEA, a reasonable interpretation of the RBA would expect a reduction in vehicular crashes on I-5 but an increase in crashes for all modes on the "local" streets, with a particular burden on bike/ped modes. Another fatal flaw of the RBA is that it appears to reduce the building capacity of the highway lids for additional pavement width on the highway (page 19 SEA). The SEA fails to discuss this in enough detail for the public to understand the environmental consequences of this decision, but a reasonable interpretation is that adding lanes to the highway prevents the placement of piers that would create spans short enough to support the intensity of development that is viable in this area. This trade-off deserves further analysis for a proper level of environmental assessment, as development intensities have environmental consequences that include increasing the rates of biking and walking, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and urban heat island impacts, and decreasing vehicular speeds. The SEA should be revised to make clear exactly which geometrical constraints prevent the placement of piers that would support the maximum viable development intensity in this area so the public can fully evaluate the environmental consequences of the RBA. A related failure of the SEA is that ODOT has refused to provide typical pavement widths (cross-sections) except in schematic form, preventing the public from knowing how many lanes they will restripe the facility to a few years after the project is constructed. It is standard practice for state DOTs to propose a facility with fewer lanes than the width of the facility can handle so that they can estimate fewer environmental impacts in NEPA documentation, then restripe the facility later to add more lanes surreptitiously. This appears to be ODOT's goal here, otherwise why would they refuse to provide typical pavement widths on multiple occasions to multiple parties, including journalists?Additionally, ODOT has refused to provide the Average Daily Traffic (ADT) projections that they use as a basis for the evaluation of a number of project outcomes, including congestion relief and climate impact. The MOVES3 model they state they used to calculate climate impact relies on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as an input, so if ODOT did in fact use that model to calculate climate impact they must have projected ADT, which is necessary to determine VMT, yet it appears nowhere in the SEA documents. The outcome of the climate impact analysis, which finds the Revised Build Alternative to be nearly identical to the No Build Alternative, is questionable under a reasonable interpretation, so lacking an understanding of the inputs to the model, the public is unable to fully evaluate the environmental impact of the project. Alex Bauman |
| 7559 | Mike | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a teacher at Harriet Tubman Middle School it seems like a lose-lose situation. If the highway expands, it puts our community out of the Albina neighborhood. If it does not the air quality that we are exposed to outside of the building and in, the toxins are still consumed by our bodies.Please, ODOT find a better solution than encroaching more and more into the lives of the only black community left in inner Portland. | |
| 7560 | Emily | Guise | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This project by its very nature will have massive impacts on the environment, and it s the least ODOT can do to conduct a thorough EIS. Pollution from I-5 has already caused generational harm from increased asthma and respiratory diseases and widening the highway will increase vehicle use and therefore vehicle emissions from gas, brakes, and oil. |
| 7561 | Ian | Lindsay | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: My name is Ian, and my spouse and I own a home in the Eliot neighborhood half a block from Dawson Park. We intentionally chose this neighborhood in which to raise our young children. I am writing to express my great discomfort with the proposed Rose Quarter I-5 expansion plan. My desire is that the plan to increase the capacity of I-5 be stopped. A major reason for this are the immediate and proximate (as well as ongoing and wide-reaching) negative impacts to the environment and our health. Please conduct a full EIS. Additionally, please consider the many other ways the considerable resources being proposed could be spent improving how people move around and through our city.As I shared in my public comment from 2019, the location of the Rose Quarter is particularly central to the city of Portland. So many parts of our city come together just here: It is the nexus of the Eliot Neighborhood, Overlook Neighborhood, Irvington Neighborhood, Convention Center, Broadway Bridge, Amtrak Station, Lloyd District, Pearl District, Chinese Garden District, and Steel Bridge. One would struggle to find another spot that is so geographically significant in our region, especially if one also includes I-5 and I-84. A strong case can be made that this is one of the hearts of the city of Portland. This is a place where many come together, move from one part of the city to another, live, work, and recreate. In such a place, I hope for infrastructure that fosters the movement of people in sustainable, livable, and future oriented modes. Increasing freeway capacity seems diametrically opposed to those goals. While it is true that freeways connect distant areas, they also greatly divide neighborhoods and the people who live nearby those freeways. Those rushing by may get to their destinations faster, but those living nearby deal with a monolith of concrete and unbroken traffic that changes how people move about their neighborhood and their city in subtle and not so subtle ways. Once built, freeways tend to stay in place for a very long time and become defining geographic features of a city. Creating a long term bull-work of more concrete directly in the heart of a city just does not seem like a future oriented plan.Our family owns two cars, and we use them on a regular basis. However, on a daily basis we prioritize using our bicycles and walking around this neighborhood and city we love. We have found it much less expensive to invest in clothing appropriate for every type of weather, and for bicycles that can transport all of us along with our various belongings than to use the car for the many shorts trips we make. We want to stay healthy, we want our city and neighbors to be healthy. Increasing the size of I-5 will make our family, our neighbors, our neighborhood, our city, and our region less vibrant, less healthy, and less livable. Please conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement. |
| 7562 | Scott | Clyburn | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Because we know expanding freeways doesn't work - it just invites more drivers. We need to build a city of the future, and green alternatives to single-driver transportation is the way forward, not caving to America's unholy marriage to the automobile. |
| 7563 | Herb | Fyfield | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hey ODOT, Wake up! How many voices do you need to hear from? Well, I'm adding mine. Do the right (and legal thing) for once. I demand, in the name of our future, a full and complete Environmental Impact Statement to assess the impact of your ridiculous Rose Quarter Expansion project. The future will not forget your complicity in destroying this city if you do not. And I will say in closing, we have only just begun to fight you. |
| 7564 | Avery | Johnson | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding I-5 is will not solve the problems this project was initiated to solve. Besides the fact that the freeway expansion will have a massive negative impact on the Eliot neighborhood and the students of Rosa Parks, there is no chance that a freeway expansion will actually reduce traffic! With induced demand, we'll have more lanes full of cars spewing toxic exhaust. We don't need more car pollution in our current era of massive, apocalyptic climate change. |
| 7565 | Jan L | Zuckerman | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We have learned a lot in the past 20 years about the cost of climate disruption to the health and safety of every sector of our society. As a teacher, mother, and grandmother, who is concerned for our children and the world they inherit from us, we must face the facts that decisions such as highway expansions only perpetuate the harm and destruction that past decisions have already caused.It is therefore imperative that ODOT conducts a full Environmental Impact Statement that actually studies whether adding lanes of freeways actually reduces congestion and even if they do- what are the alternatives to prevent more pollution and toxins from seeping into our air, water, land and lungs of our children?My son and daughter-in-law live near I-5 and already feel the effects of the pollution on their health. They cannot afford to move and are concerned about the impact of the freeway expansion on their health and the value of their home. The upfront costs of doing this right are much less than the health and environmental costs from doing business as usual. ODOT- do your job. |
| 7566 | Ruby | Oland | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: When moving to Oregon from Utah I was excited to live in a state that better valued it's impact on the environment at large. It's brutal to watch our state tax dollars be put to use in such a carbon-intensive and ideologically backwards manner. We the constituents of Portland demand an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. |
| 7567 | Eli | Shannon | Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: An Environmental Impact Statement needs to be conducted for this project because ODOT, PBOT, the Portland City Council and Trimet all seem to be ostriches with their heads in the sand about the actual environmental outcomes that have occurred due to previous decisions to prioritize car travel access in Portland. Despite a transit hub being built in the area, nothing has been done to increase it's use. So Trimet laments low ridership while increasing fares, and nothing is done about the attrocious traffic during events at the Moda Center. PBOT and Trimet collaborate to build Rose lanes, but Portlander's continue to believe their household is entitled to parking two SUVs that are driven daily as single occupancy vehicles and parking fees are not increased as bus service is also not increased. Whatever an Environmental Impact Statement shows, it will likely be more than what ODOT wants to claim AND less than will be the true reality. As a Portlander who has seen the dramatic shift in hotter, drier summers full of pollution and stormier winters (both of which, it turns out, make it harder to bike and rely on Trimet) freeway expansion will bring us more of the same and will not meaningfully reduce congestion. |
| 7568 | Adrienne | Stacey | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: EIS is a truthful way to assess value and harm done by freeway expansion to a particular area., in this case a neighborhood full of lives. For goodness sake do the more through EIS possible. Adrienne Stacey |
| 7569 | Jon | Wood | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I want an Environmental Impact Survey about the effects of the proposed expansion performed. |
| 7570 | Asa | Gartrell | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Living in proximity to a highway has been detrimental to my asthma and I believe the Rose Quarter expansion would only exacerbate health detriments for myself and the community. |
| 7571 | Lucy | Stone | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There is a large corpus of evidence suggesting that increasing the number of lanes does not improve traffic conditions, but the reverse, by encouraging more people to drive. The long term effect of gas and diesel fumes in health and education outcomes has also shown to be detrimental. |
| 7572 | Mark | Winningkoff | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Urban freeways are an air quality disaster. There are proven negative health effects caused by living, working, or attending school near freeways. It has also been shown in many instances in cities across the United States, that expanding freeways to ease congestion is a fools game, as the added lanes soon fill up with more traffic, eliminating any improvement in travel times, and increasing air pollution. I understand that a major selling point of the project is to build 'caps' over the freeway in an attempt to improve the neighborhood that was destroyed by the initial construction of the freeway. While of dubious benefit, due to the poor air quality that exists above the freeway, this part of the project could be completed without the lane expansion. I am appalled that this project has been branded and re-branded as some sort of 'reparations' to the black community which was originally displaced. It is imperative that a full EIS be conducted before we move ahead with the proposed Rose Quarter Expansion Project. It is also irresponsible to begin any sort of expansion before planned congestion tolling has been implemented. |
| 7573 | Susan | Hartnett | I object strongly to proceeding with this project. The price tag is absurd in comparison to the benefits. The notion that the I-5 entrance and exit can be located where proposed is ridiculous unless you intend to tear down the Rose Quarter - oh, right, that IS what you intend to do. The impacts from this project to the city, regional and state economy will be unbelievably negative and will be one more nail in Portland's demise. I know this project is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped and that my opinion will mean nothing but here it is anyway. If I am asked in any way to help pay for this project, I will say no, vote no and do everything I can to fight against it. |
| 7575 | Clifford | Eiffler-Rodriguez | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: At it's basis, I am shocked that a EIS isn't a requirement for a project this large. ODOT continues to act with impunity in defying the fact that climate change and this project are tied intrinsically, shows a flawed vision that will cause more harm to people in Portland and the region at large. It's time to get some oversight and re-direct the agency's efforts are more equitable solutions for transportation throughout the state. |
| 7576 | Gage | Wilde | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Every anti-environment choice that we make dooms us all a little more. We really need to think about what's important. |
| 7577 | Francisco | Gadea | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I strongly feel that a full Environmental Impact Statement is required for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project to proceed. We already have poor air quality in N Portland, expanding the freeway will only make it worse for local residents. I'm also opposed to tolls being imposed on the freeways as folks will have to pay extra just to go to work. Expanding the freeway will result in an increase in the number of cars. As a driver and a cyclist I am concerned with what Portland will look like with more cars on the road. |
| 7578 | Cody | Swanson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: More lanes will not fix the problems on this freeway, dedicate more money to public transit expansion, bike infrastructure expansion (maybe on a freeway lid????), and things that improve the lives of people who live in the areas the freeways slices away from the rest of the city. |
| 7579 | Curt | Gardner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I believe the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion project will lead to increased volume of cars going through this section of Portland, and thus I am very interested in the estimated environmental impact of the project. Please conduct appropriate studies and include an Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. |
| 7580 | Israel | Molina | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expanding freeways only leads to more car on the road and does not solve congestion because of induced demand. Simply, more cars on the road (of any type) means more green house gasses, accelerating the climate crises and increased health detriment to communities along highway corridors as someone who lives 6 blocks from I-5 my health and the health of my neighbors will be put in greater risk because of freeway expansion. Do not expand the freeway. Portlanders need more options to get out of cars and off of freeways. |
| 7581 | Jillian | Wieseneck | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: My family lives in neighborhood that would be affected and we do not want more pollution. Plus this will heavily affect Harriet Tubman Middle School . |
| 7582 | Brendan | Tschuy | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The current ODOT plan not only contributes to climate change by expanding car infrastructure, it actively invades pedestrian, cyclist, and neighborhood space by removing crosswalks, narrowing sidewalks, and increasing vehicle speed through this area. Nobody wants to live in a place with cars cratering down the street at all hours of the day. Let's reduce vehicle speeds and limit damaging climate change impacts. |
| 7583 | Madeline | Bisgyer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I would much rather see Portland put money into expanding clean energy and transportation solutions. We know that more lanes do not mean less traffic. We need to listen to young people who are going to have to deal with the deadly effects of climate change far longer than current lawmakers. |
| 7584 | Scott | Hillson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Clean air and a healthy city are more important than shoving more cars and trucks down I-5. |
| 7585 | Jessi | Presley-Grusin | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We don't need wider freeway lanes, we need more accessible streets for public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. Expanding the freeway will make transportation and life in general even worse for our community. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that truly studies whether these additional lanes of toxic, polluting freeway at such exorbitant cost are truly necessary to reduce congestion. ODOT has repeatedly and deliberately hid from the public information that is crucial and necessary to understanding the impacts this proposed freeway expansion will have on our community and city, and therefore the proposal must be denied. |
| 7586 | Duncan | Baruch | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We human beings need to change our planet-killing habits ASAP. Eliminate fossil fuel burning straight away! We can ignore the cooking of the biosphere which has already begun, but as it worsens, we will not be able to ignore the impending catastrophe.No freeway expansion! |
| 7587 | Caton | Gates | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Good heavens, how can we *not* conduct an environmental impact statement for this project? The environment is in crisis, and it s projects like this one that may contribute to its worsening. Ignoring it isn t an option if we re to go ahead, it should be with clear eyes, understanding the implications of our decision. Maybe the benefits of the freeway outweigh the cost to the environment, but we can t do the math without knowing all parts of the equation! |
| 7588 | Joseph | Cortright | This is not responsive to my request, which was for an accurate scale drawing.Please provide a scale plan drawing showing the roadway, as well as all on- and-off ramps between N. Hancock and N. Wheeler. You continue to obfuscate the actual dimensions of the project. You have spent millions of dollars of public funds on engineering (and public relations) and continue to hide what your are proposing. Please provide the requested scale plan drawing. Joe |
| 7589 | Holly | Hein | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A full understanding and consideration of environmental impacts on our communities and ecosystems will guide this project to be what we truly need. Please don't repeat mistakes of the past. I am concerned about impact on active transportation, air quality, noise, and how we can best spend our money and resources. Please consider a full EIS. |
| 7590 | Hami | Ramani | The planet is in the midst of catastrophic climate collapse in large part because of the fossil fuels used to build cars and the infrastructure that supports them. We know that highway expansion leads to more cars (ie, induced demand). Yet, ODOT wants to build more lanes on a freeway that gutted the Black community of Albina decades ago? This would be another loveless act by the white supremacist power structure that has caused so much harm in our society. Do you really want to perpetuate that? You, ODOT, are on the wrong side of history. Stop this project now and invest instead in human-scale infrastructure and be part of the solution geared to healing and compassion. |
| 7591 | Mason | Miller | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: no new laneslids not lanestoll I-5 |
| 7592 | Janet | Roxburgh | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Chopping the Albina community in half years ago, because of building a section of the I-5, caused a lot of damage to that community! Enough already! Please, no more adding to the damage that has been done! No expanding I-5 at the Rose Quarter! Try and make up for some of the past by building a suitable cover over what is already there, if that is what the Albina community want. Don't inflict more injury. How would you feel if you had lived there when all was thriving, and you and your family and neighbors were displaced? How would you feel if now, promises for a cover are not kept and more damage due to widening is done? Please do not expand the Rose Quarter Freeway! Thank you. |
| 7593 | Cameron | Daniels | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please consider high speed rail options. We need to be removing cars from our roads, not encouraging more. I agree that highways are vital to a functioning society, but so many trips can be eliminated using other means. I fully support the Cascade Rail System to connect Seattle to Eugene. As someone who frequently drives through Portland without stopping, a reliable rail system would be a game changer for so many. Please follow the example of other nations and consider high speed rail as an alternative. For us and future generations. |
| 7594 | Edward | Conlow | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I oppose adding additional lanes. In my lifetime, that s how we have sought to solve every traffic issue, and it s gotten us nothing but more cars, more congestion, more pollution, and ruined neighborhoods. Please conduct a full environmental (EIS) study to identify some options that don t give us more of the same. |
| 7595 | Alex | Bloch | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I think that the state of Oregon deserves better than to put billions of dollars into a project that will make surface roads more dangerous. I can't support a project that will put a 6 way intersection (at Intersection of N Wheeler, Ramsay and Williams ) in the middle of one of the most used bikeways in the city. As an avid driver I think having a freeway off ramp to a bikeway is just asking for a biker fatality.The money set aside for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion would be much better used if put towards safety improvements to Portland/Oregon's most deadly roads. Adding more lanes to an already safe freeway does nothing to reduce traffic deaths.Because of this I am demanding that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement so other alternatives can be studied. |
| 7596 | Jynx | Houston | I ABSOLUTELY OPPOSE ANY WIDENING OF MAJOR ROADWAYS. ALL THAT WILL RESULT IS ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION& MORE TRAFFIC. ENOUGH!!! Jynx Houston |
| 7597 | Mancala | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This isn't safe, this isn't sustainable! we need to find more sustainable forms of transportation if we want the earth to be safe for future generations!! | |
| 7598 | Jenny | Lovold | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello,We are in the midst of a climate emergency, 205 is a great option and using my tax dollars to subsidize tax free shopping for Vancouver residents is ridiculous. Please stop trying to engineer our way out of a climate crisis with more roads. There are so many projects Portland needs and another road to cram full of Amazon trucks and women driving their kids to segregated schools. Portland humans don't want this, I have been writing these letters since 2012, stop. We hit peak oil in 72, how are electric cars going to pay for this? Please don't do this to our kids. The schools are suffering, the humans are suffering and it's all priorities. Stop ruining the future, my kids and I beg you. Thank you for caring about the earth and trees, Jenny LovoldVoter, tax payer, nice person |
| 7599 | Sofia | Zarfas | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: How can anyone know the impact of a project like this without conducting any assessments? |
| 7600 | Jane | Smiley | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is ridiculous to not have an EIS regarding the freeway expansion around the Rose Quarter. It gives the impression that ODOT is afraid of the results. |
| 7602 | Kate | Long | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I m planning to move to Portland precisely because it honors its communities. DO an EIS before building any more freeways; in CA the freeways have destroyed communities, in particular polluting and dividing neighborhoods of color. Overpasses become more homeless encampments. |
| 7603 | Margaret | Neerman | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Considering the damage cars clogging city freeways do to local environments it makes no sense that ODOT wouldn t conduct an EIS on the proposed freeway expansion. I m a mother and a grandmother and I want mitigations to climate change not actions by city leaders that make it worse. I moved here three years ago from Northern Virginia and watched over 50 years as freeway expansion brought increased pollution, traffic and development to the DC area. The number of children with asthma increased exponentially with the increase in traffic smog. I don t understand why you want to do the same thing to the city of Portland. Worsening environmental pollution makes life miserable for your citizens. It is essential that an environmental impact assessment be conducted. Peggy Neerman |
| 7604 | Jaq | Kunz | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In a time of climate crisis, we should be doing all we can to protect our environment. There is a great need to understand the impacts of construction on the environment. This proposed expansion impacts many people and would put schoolchildren and local communities at greater risk of pollution exposure. Please, think about them, and about the importance of environmental impact assessments. They are an essential part of the engineering and construction process that should not be ignored.There are other solutions, such as investing in affordable, accessible transit. |
| 7605 | Eric | Goranson | I do not see in any of your documents in the Supplemental Environmental Assessment that you have planned for the future. This project is already 30 years past due if you were to look at traffic, heath, and safety. I see zero planning for future capacity planning when this project needs to be expanded. You GLAZE over this issue in 4.2 and you clearly have not studied future growth estimates for this area. You try to hide it in your written shell game in 4.2. The project tolling, if you actually get to the point of starting it, will most likely get tied up in litigation for years ( I will be one of the tens of thousands of area residents donating to that campaign) so that will most likely not change traffic. It appears you are just building another project with zero planning for future roadway expansion and you should be building this with PLANS that will allow at least two more lanes in each direction. This project needs to be built but again your poor planning for the future makes it so I will not support this flawed project. This is just more of ODOT cramming poorly planned projects down to the people and not considering the future. Eric Goranson |
| 7606 | Ronald | Buel | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Expanding the number of lanes will increase over-all congestion in the Portland Metropolitan Area. Expanding the number of lanes of I-5 through my neighborhood will increase air pollution and make our fight against climate change even more difficult, thereby increasing wildfires and drought in Oregon.I support lids for I-5, but not expanding the number of lanes through the heart of our City. Signed, Ronald A. Buel |
| 7607 | Courtney | Brown | To the I5 Rose Quarter expansion team:Please do a full Environmental Impact Statement on this project. There is so much controversy surrounding the issue of whether a freeway expansion actually increases carbon emissions - the public should have the full analysis on this issue so we know completely what the impacts will be on air emissions from traffic. Failing to do a full analysis will leave this question unanswered.Also, as a parent of middle school students at Tubman I would like you to know that the school community has never been engaged in a meaningful way. Perhaps PPS leadership gave the "OK" but they did so without engaging the parents, neighbors and students. There are so many unanswered questions as to who/what greenlighted this project. Portland Public schools says it was ODOT's decision to move forwards with the expansion and ODOT says it was PPS's decision to move. There has been no transparency on who is making these decisions - and who, ultimately, is benefitting from the project and the new spaces that will be created by the expansion.Also, if the project will move forward why not lengthen the proposed cap so that it extends further north to where Tubman is located? Presumably this would mitigate the freeway's impact on the students and then no re-location would be necessary. Thank you for your consideration, Courtney Brown Eliot resident |
| 7608 | William | Eichelberger | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please don't expand the highway through Portland. If there's more highway, there'll be more traffic. I commute across and work close to the highway, and I don't want to deal with any more smog than I already do. Induced demand is a well documented and very predictable phenomenon! |
| 7609 | David | Whitaker | Benefit/Cost of Highway Cover. Was there a cost benefit analysis that was completed for the highway cover? There is a proposed highway lid over I-5 in Seattle and the economic feasibility of the lid was evaluated (I-5 Lid Feasibility Study, Economic and Financial Feasibility Memorandum, August 2020). Was a similar feasibility analysis completed for this project? The highway cover will add significant expense to the project and a significant maintenance liability for ODOT and/or the City of Portland. Since ODOT projects that there is an annual shortfall of $510 million to adequately maintain existing bridges and roads in Oregon, what is the plan to maintain the cover? Why is the cover really needed? There are over 40 acres of surface parking lots within the Lower Albina and Lloyd Planning Districts (City of Portland) that would be much less expensive to develop. There isn t a need for the 4 acres of very expensive developable land that would be created as a part of the Revised Build Alternative. |
| 7610 | Katherine | Sheie | This project requires a full EIS. It is ridiculous and unconscionable for ODOT to argue that adding capacity for fossil fuel burning vehicles will not have a detrimental impact on the environment, both in terms of particulate pollution and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, ODOT's traffic models have not taken into account potential tolling and/or congestion pricing on traffic volumes, and therefore do not represent the full range of solutions available. Finally, current ODOT plans for adjacent street-level improvements show a degraded environment for pedestrians and cyclists, which will in turn help depress local active transportation and make reaching climate goals even more difficult. ODOT must take all these impacts into account and produce a full EIS for the project. |
| 7611 | Emily | Gogol | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hi,I am a property owner at two locations in Portland:I request that ODOT subject the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion to the same standards of engagement, environmental analysis given to their most studied bicycle lanes, sidewalks, trails, public transit.Unlike the beneficial projects that ODOT has studied ad nauseam, a freeway expansion will increase vehicle miles traveled, increased GHG emission, increase injury and death from traffic violence, impose disease on the local neighborhoods through air and noise pollution, impose local ecological impacts through brake and tire particle runoff, and worsen the division and separation of the neighborhoods through which it runs.Question for ODOT: Why should ODOT be allowed to not conduct a full EIS and alternatives analysis on the rose quarter freeway expansion when ODOT has conducted a full EIS on non-freeway expansion projects? My comments are now on the administrative record, so address them in the EIS, or you'll be addressing them in front of the judge. |
| 7612 | David | Sweet | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Placing a buildable cap over I-5 at the Rose Quarter is a fine idea. After the construction of I-5 devastated a thriving Black community, restorative justice is in order and long past due.Widening I-5 at this point is a terrible idea. It will increase congestion, greenhouse gas emissions and car use. It will decrease livability, walkability and safety for vulnerable road users. While these issues have been clearly demonstrated they have not yet been made part of the official record. I am convinced that it is for this reason that ODOT has refused to conduct a full Environmental Impact Study of the project. Stop wasting time and money. Either produce a full EIS or, since you already know what it will reveal, dump the freeway widening and just build the cap. |
| 7613 | Sabrina | Henkhaus | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am a homeowner living a few blocks away from the freeway. I already see black dust around my home as a result of air pollution from the freeway. I am concerned about increased air pollution and the health of me and my neighbors. I believe that the increased lanes will lead to more cars and pollution. Please DO NOT expand the highway! |
| 7614 | Judy | Todd | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Without the full story and scientific results of an EIS, there is no way to make an informed decision. to be the kind of person read that changes the climate disaster future that s rapidly coming toward us. |
| 7615 | Betsy | Reese | Dear ODOT, Please record my public testimony regarding the I-5 Rose Quarter expansion project. A full Environmental Impact Statement should be mandatory. As a citizen activist and affected nearby property owner, I have provided extensive input, in writing and in person, to ODOT, PBOT, and AECOM, regarding the Environmental Assessment of this project. I did not see evidence in the EA that my voice had been heard. While I won't reiterate the details of all of my concerns here, I will mention that the effects of the current freeway and your plan to widen it, has a devastating environmental impact, in terms of air and noise pollution, on near neighbors like Harriet Tubman Middle School, Lillis Albina Park, the historic Paramount Apartments, the Leftbank Building, and the soon-to-be constructed Albina One affordable housing project. Please craft a well-planned congestion pricing program and other Transit Demand Management strategies before proceeding with widening the freeway. Please consider constructing buildable lids over the existing freeway, without widening it. Please contribute to the surface street and land use improvements to help make this valuable, close-in, historic area the thriving walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented neighborhood that our city deserves. Please help atone for past wrongs by providing the infrastructure needed to complement and support the Albina Vision for developing this area. Thank you for taking my testimony. Betsy Reese Resident, Southeast Portland Business owner, Paramount Parking North Portland, Rose Quarter area |
| 7616 | Nina | French | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We need to be mindful of community and health of people and environment. Noise pollution is intolerable for animals. |
| 7617 | Eric | Mandel | I don't think it's necessary that we try to delay a project to force it to go through another environmental rigorous reviewThis statement made by Executive Steering Committee Chair and Oregon Transportation Commission Vice Chair Alando Simpson to the Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB) April 6th 2021, should be at the front of mind for anyone reviewing ODOT s Rose Quarter Environmental Assessment, sorting the public comments into the in favor and against categories, determining if the ODOT public engagement was genuine, and determining if the project should be allowed to proceed without the more rigorous Environmental Impact Study, and meaningful alternatives to the freeway expansion.I would be in favor of a project that left the current width of the freeway unchanged, managed traffic giving priority to freight through congestion pricing, capped the existing freeway with an alternative cap footprint that allowed for much greater density, and I am in favor of ODOT awarding contracts to WMBE and specifically Black Contractors on projects throughout Oregon / not solely tied to and dependent on the expansion of the freeway running through the Albina Community. This, after compromising on my true preferred alternative, what I would consider a home run to borrow an expression from Chair Simpson: decommissioning and tearing down the freeway, placing all of the ODOT land in a Land Trust controlled by the Albina Community, and prioritizing the movement of freight in the remaining freeway infrastructure through congestion pricing.Unfortunately, these two alternative project scenarios were dropped before meaningful public engagement was conducted. I therefore urge the Federal Government to step in and demand that ODOT provide meaningful project alternatives such as these in the course of full Environmental Impact Statement.When I proposed that the Historic Albina Advisory Board consider such an alternative home run Use the newly available Federal Funds to decommission the freeway, the response that I received from ODOT should raise alarm bells for anyone reviewing the Environmental Assessment, especially if ODOT is applying for Federal Grants such as the Reconnecting Communities Initiative.Chair Simpson provided an exemplary ODOT vomit session, to use his own words, on April 6th, 2021, in which he honestly recognized the boundaries that ODOT places around any public engagement, clearly placing the two alternatives I propose outside of those boundaries or outside of the project Scope as other ODOT documents state.His soap box speech to the HAAB on Apil 6th must be examined in consideration of ODOTs Environmental Assessment giving important context to all of ODOT s work and the resulting public engagement deliverables and testimony in favor of the project. When ODOT makes a statement that Removing I-5 would be inconsistent with both the core values of the project and the preferences of the majority of stakeholders, including Black Portlanders, and is therefore no longer being considered, everyone should stop right there to at least question if this statement, that removing I-5 would be inconsistent with preference of the majority of Black Portlanders, is evidence that maybe the Federal Government should intervene to insist that ODOT actually study freeway removal as one of a few differentiated alternative scenarios in the form of a full EIS. And then to go back to the public stake holders, including the Black Portlanders, and determine if removing the freeway scenario is inconsistent with both their core values and their preferences. I have a feeling that the public comments would be much different than those submitted when the existing only option is cap the expanded freeway. Different to the point where it would probably invalidate ODOT s public outreach up to this point.I have provided the April 6th 2021 HAAB transcript from Chair Simpson in total so as not to be seen as only sharing the lines that might be most interesting or relevant to my submission s request for ODOT to provide alternatives to freeway expansion and a full EIS of those alternatives, and out of respect for the entirety of Chair Simpson s testimony. I have also provided the recorded meeting minutes for comparison.first of all thank you everybody for um committing your time to this interesting process um that you are going through which i mean interesting to the extent that you know there's a lot of wounds here as it pertains to what has happened to this community historically and ongoingly but i do believe that there is a very important group of leaders and individuals and all different disciplines that are working collectively to ensure that what happens as a result of this project actually can foster a model for how you actually build community going forward and how that really impacts and restores some of the historical injustices wrong that impacted a particular group portland is not the only place where highways have scarred the fabric of the community it's happened all over the the entire country i mean it happens all over the world if you talk about in today's standards um but i do believe that you know things are starting to change little by little and as we know or i would say our our ops manager my facility operation operationally says um you know we don't eat the elephant all at once it's just one bite at a time and so um i think if we keep that in the back of our minds knowing that change comes with baby steps and we little every little single matter matters we won't have to worry about the home runs and so um to just be adamant and um optimistic about where we're going and trust the process and i think that that kind of applies to to most things in life but um i just wanted to kind of say a couple of things as it pertains to where things are at today um at our last meeting we had an update on the work of the independent highway cover and there's a lot of community feedback during that first round of workshops and um for the ica team uh really the role that they've been brought on to really assist the agency with was you know generating up to three feasible engineering and architectural options in one of our previous esc meetings i raised this question to the group because there's we can come up with all kind of pretty pictures and designs but the real question is what can we do within the boundaries that we actually have and i think sometimes when people aren't fully privy to who controls what jurisdiction who owns what who does that i mean we have a city where odot owns a highway we have a city that owns the streets and then we have a county that owns a bridge all within like one mile radius so think about when you talk about transportation how complicated that can get when you have three different public agencies with three different policy structures working together to achieve something and i think um trying to set those boundaries and getting people to understand what swimming lanes everybody's functioning in it makes it easier to try to think through what you can and can't do as you're working through community engagement processes so i would just highly encourage folks that you know we obviously want to focus on the community and the economic needs for this particular area but the one thing we have to be cognizant on is keeping in mind that we do have boundaries there's a specific footprint that has been defined under our environmental assessment approval that was issued through the federal government and we must work within those boundaries odot doesn't do housing odot doesn't do schools odot doesn't do a lot of the ancillary things small business incubation i guess you can say they have a mentor protege program through contracting and things of that nature and they administer the disadvantaged business enterprise program to the federal government but outside of that there's not a lot of things that odot can do i think odot could be a great convener and partner with a lot of other public agencies that oversee a lot of other things pertaining to urban planning housing and city street infrastructures and utility systems and things of that nature that are necessary to build a community but there's only one particular role that odot plays in this whole conversation um and i'm just humbled to be a part of odot taking a leadership role being vulnerable being honest about what it has done historically and what it plans to do to try to create a different paradigm on how it invests in communities and i think that says a lot about an agency that's gone through a lot over the past couple years and i know it firsthand because i've been a part of it i've spent my whole 30s on odot which i don't know if that's gonna like cause me trauma and harm as i get older or not but i'm hoping it doesn't i'm hoping things like these can actually showcase as to why we actually become public servants and why we try to change systems in order to make them better for our future generations so i just want to encourage you know everybody here to understand that at the at the at the commission level for odot we are definitely pushing uh it's a 5 000 person agency so as much as we wanted to change overnight that's not realistic and that's not practical it's going to take time and for folks to just be patient with that time and be patient that you know folks that are leading these efforts within the urban mobility office and with region within region 1 they are starting to come along with this new direction and this new ethos and this new culture that is being instilled through the agency by our leader chris strickler um who i was a very big fan of going through the hiring process uh after matt gear retired from modot after 10 years which he was the longest standing director in the united states at that at that time um and i think ever for that for that for that matter as far as i know to date but i just wanted i wanted to say those things so you guys can actually know from me honest and vulnerable and just transparent that you know this is this is how i feel this is how I think about the process um today's presentation will give us you know a lot stronger understanding that baseline footprint which i think is the main emphasis that i want folks to kind of keep in mind um and understanding that baseline will help this group evaluate the feasibility of that cover design so that we can start working towards reconnecting this community and thinking about bigger opportunities like the group that's working on more of an economic development strategy referred to as albino vision trust as it pertains to urban planning efforts and so whatever role the department can play in that effort to try to help streamline and help assist foster through a bigger economic development strategy such as one that is really large and aspirational like albino vision trust i think we're all fans and supportive of um so for with that um i just want to again thank you all for uh for your time for your energy for your sacrifice and your public commitment to this effort um we want to make sure that we work obviously within those boundaries but to me personally as everything has happened i don't think it's necessary that we try to delay a project to force it to go through another environmental rigorous review when we have an opportunity right in front of us and somebody can go verify this but as the team has been designated right now within the within the construction partnership on this project there is an estimated 100 million dollars that is going to go back into the hands of a black owned construction firm period now why is that important it's because it is one of the largest if not the largest contract ever issued to a black owned civil engineering firm not on the west coast but on in our entire country that is transformational and when you think about the amount of money that goes back into the community in the form of jobs and opportunities and economic development and people being able to buy homes and build wealth and change the paradigm in which we're actually even talking about homes being taken from people this is the bigger conversation we have to focus on and um and i'm and i'm really adamant that we're going down this path i think we're going to do it the right way i'm optimistic we're going to do it the right way we can't do it the right way without stakeholders such as yourselves and the other folks that have been involved in this entire process but personally delaying a process like this with that kind of opportunity on the table which is transformational uh wouldn't be the most logical thing for us to do especially in a moment when everybody seems to believe black lives matter i'm a big advocate for black economic prosperity matters because economic prosperity leads to independence and so the only way we can actually restore an independent and rebuild black community you have to be able to provide opportunities to economic independence and so i believe that the construction opportunity right here will be a great catalyst to that and i encourage you guys all to continue to challenge the agency push the agency demand the agency do things outside the box and different but to always keep in mind that there's boundaries in which you work through outcomes to try to get to positive solutions and so in this case we unfortunately have a boundary unless people believe it doesn't make sense to put 100 million dollars into the black community as fast as possible if people don't believe that then sure i understand i don't believe that because i think our community needs it the most since it's been here the longest in this country yet it's still the last place economically on the on the totem pole so again i'm sorry for the vomit session in the rant and the soapbox but um i appreciate everybody's time commitment to this again and um i'm available if anybody wants to reach out and talk in any more depth about what my thoughts and ideas are as the chair of the esc or as a commissioner of the otc as it relates to this project going forwardHAAB Meeting Summary April 6, 2021Megan Channell, Project Director, introduced the Executive Steering Committee Chair and Oregon Transportation Commission Vice Chair Alando Simpson. Chair Simpson acknowledged the work that the board has been focusing on and how important it is to transportation planning nationwide. He reinforced ODOT s commitment to correcting past wrongs and thanked board members for all their work on this project. Chair Simpson announced that as part of doing business differently ODOT recently committed to the largest contract award for a Black-owned contractor in the United States. He also noted that the project will be moving forward in design and will not be conducting any further environmental assessment.Pause for a second on that last line and the omissions that the official meeting summary made notably the emphasis on boundaries the advisory board must work within, or lack of alternative proposals, no mention of hitting a home run , or the stress on pushing the project through as fast as possible. Perhaps I could have created my own summary of Vice Chair Simpsons speech but thought it important enough that it be included in record in its entirety. It is important that this context be considered for whether the Federal Government should require that ODOT provide alternative projects to the freeway expansion and whether those alternatives should be analyzed through a full EIS, and whether the public engagement or the public s ability to chose to support / or oppose a variety of projects would have better reflected their core values and preferences.I also left the entirety of Chair Simpson s testimony because a key argument against studying alternatives is that alternatives were dropped after a rigorous public review process in 2012. Chair Simpson s dialogue on the history and future intentions of ODOT I think speak to insufficient community engagement in 2012 and lack of emphasis on the values of the black community and restorative justice : key project goals today.While I stated before that I would support project leaving the current width of the freeway and adding caps, I do think that removal of the freeway especially if funds from the Reconnecting Communities Grants are used - should be an option on the table. I emphasized this in a submission to the HAAB meeting on April 6th:The response that I received to public comment submission to the HAAB were summarized as follows:info@i5rosequarter.org May 13th 2021 the majority of Portland Metro residents support the project<https://www.i5rosequarter.org/2020/12/17/majority-of-portland-metro-residents-support-the-i-5-rose-quarter-improvement-project/>. Removing I-5 would be inconsistent with both the core values of the project and the preferences of the majority of stakeholders, including Black Portlanders, and is therefore no longer being considered. [Redacted] Fri, Mar 19, 2021Removing the highway was one of more than 70 initial concepts studied as part of the I-5 Broadway-Weidler Facility Plan developed with the City of Portland. Ultimately, the mainline improvements were included in the preferred alternative because a core purpose of the project is to reduce congestion and improve safety between I-84 and I-405.This is what I submitted to the HAAB for the Arpil 6th meeting:Sent: Monday, April 5, 2021 9:55 AM[Redacted]Subject: RQ-6305 Public Comment for Historic Albina Advisory Board Meeting on April 6, 2021Thank you for the opportunity of submitting the following to be included as public comment and for sharing it with the Board Members in advance of their meeting. -I re-submit my initial question to ODOT and the HAAB, as the lengthy ODOT response I received raises more questions and concerns than it answers.Bloomberg News ran a story "How the Federal Government Could Help Kill the Highways it Built" Feb 1, 2021. - "A new Senate bill includes a $10 billion program aimed at cities that are considering removing urban freeways and repairing the damage these projects inflicted on vulnerable communities decades ago." Before moving forward with the project, will ODOT and the Historic Albina Community Advisory Board consider the options now available for freeway removal made possible with the new administration and Senate Control? Would removing the freeway be a greater benefit to the Albina Community than the freeway caps considered, and would it be more aligned with the project values?The response from ODOT (which I hope is shared with the HAAB) is essentially that the decision not to remove the freeway was made in 2012 with the adoption of the NE / Quadrant Plan and the I-5 Broadway-Weidler Facility Plan, and will therefore not be reassessed now.ODOT celebrates in their response to my question that they did in fact consider removing the freeway as one of more than 70 concepts studied when making the decision not to demolish the freeway. Pause on that for a moment - one of over 70 proposals. Was there ever even a chance?Beyond the 1/70 roll the dice odds, the Facility Plan analysis was structured to all but ensure that the freeway would not be removed. Phase 1 of the Plan Development and Public Involvement Process involved: establishing existing conditions and goals and objectives for freeway and local transportation issues. Starting from this point, 70+ proposals for leaving in place or expanding the freeway were pursued and 1 proposal for removing the freeway was drafted. Because the core purpose of the project was framed as a traffic engineering advancement, evaluated by a Department of Transportation, the proposed removal of I-5 was dropped from consideration because it was found to be beyond the scope of this project .The N/E Quadrant plan also neglected the one decision that would most benefit the Black Community, emphasizing instead integration with the I-5 Broadway Weidler Interchange Project and I-5 Facility Plan (see above). From what I found, the closest that the N/E Quadrant Plan came to suggesting the freeway might be removed came in Appendix E where the document lists issues that were commonly raised but were not considered because they were clearly not within the scope of this project : including questions about the future of the I-5 Eastbank Freeway in the Central East Side and removing I-5 from the study area.It was not my intent with my initial question to address past decisions, but ODOT is in an indefensible position that requires a lengthy rebuttal. ODOT is holding up a decision from 2012 as a point of no return that settled the matter of removing / not removing the freeway, while at the same time highlighting their acknowledgment that the Black Community s values and progress have been marginalized and stymied throughout history and that it is a great step forward to now, almost ten years later, finally establish the HAAB to re-address the inadequate understanding and valuation of the rebuilding of the Black Community in the historic Albina neighborhood.Now that it is 2021, and the voices of the Black Community have been elevated, why not start with the decision that could best deliver the values and community development ideas the HAAB is working towards? Why didn t this exemplary planning process, world class planning and programing by ZGF, and ODOT sponsored championing of the re-building of the Albina Community, happen before the most critical decision point: Phase 1 to / not to remove the freeway? Why didn t ODOT invite, at the beginning - or now, the organizations such as Smart Growth For America and Transportation for America to lead the analysis of what highway removal can and should look like? As a Board member noted, it is critical to start at the right spot because where you start is where you will end up.The board member pressed the issue of whether this is urban design 2.0, where all of the critical design happens without the elevation of input from the Black Community or without them even knowing critical decisions are being made. The response was don t worry: nothing has been designed yet. This is true only if you discount the most critical decision already made (in 2012) and ignore the redesigned expanded freeway cutting through the community.ODOT appears to stand by the claim that nothing has been designed yet and I think is indirectly answering my initial question in the negative (in a 3 bullet point summary of the purpose of the HAAB), by asserting that seeking the removal of the freeway is once again clearly not within the work scope. This raises the question - who would better be positioned than the Historic Albina Advisory Board to weigh in on potential impact and benefits to the Black Community of the removal of the freeway? ODOT had their chance in 2012. With all of their traffic projection computer modeling, highway design manual auxiliary lane diagrams, fender bender obsession, induced demand denialism, climate justice cluelessness, aversion to congestion pricing, and institutional knowledge of advancing black communities, the Department of Transportation was unable (would never be able) to value or envision a rich, vibrant, healthy, empowered, thriving Black Community without a freeway running through it: That is clearly is well outside ODOT's scope of vision. So if not the HAAB or ODOT, who should, or who will, consider removing the freeway?Also, the news article that I reference was published after the scope of the HAAB was set, (and after the 2012 decision): exploring the removal of the Freeway with assistance from the federal government was not an advertised option when the scope was set. Now that it appears to be an option, would it be beneficial for the HAAB to add this option to their scope of work? The HAAB members have been encouraged to be skeptical and to ask difficult and demanding questions. Why not ask if removal of the freeway can now be an option?It is also important that I recommend assistance of the Federal Government as they can at critical times prove to be more willing and able to advance the goals and values of the Black Community when municipalities or States can or will not. This could be one of those times.In their response to my question, ODOT emphasized that the City of Portland was involved in developing the plan which excluded the removal of the freeway. It is my understanding that currently the City of Portland, Metro, and the key community group the Albina Vision Trust have suspended their support of the Project. Regardless, if my amateur reading of the historic planning documents is correct - correct me if I am wrong, these and other Stakeholders never really considered removing the freeway and turning the land over to a community controlled land trust, as it was outside of the scope of consideration.Given all of this, the HAAB and / or other representatives of the Black Community could elevate the incredible work of the HAAB, the world class plan and programming that will be laid out by ZGF, the full championing by ODOT of the advancement of the values and goals of the Black Community (as displayed front and center on the re-branded project website) and apply it to the removal of the freeway and argue that the entirety of land should be turned over to the community in the form of a land trust. Then return to the stakeholders (with perhaps the support of the Federal Government) and ask a difficult and demanding question.Which City, County, Metro, State, and Federal representatives would support / oppose this restorative justice? Tri-Met, Prosper Portland, Portland Public Schools? Would the major employers in the area Kaiser Permanente, Liberty Mutual, Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Meyer Memorial Trust etc. support or oppose the Black Community s vision? in 2021, would major freight companies go on record against the Black Community and would they trade the Albina Community Corridor Freeway for congestion pricing that prioritized freight movement in the remaining freeway system and re-allocation of project funding to freight specific highway improvements in industrial areas? Would the Rose Quarter NBA players, now encouraged to wear Black Lives Matter on their jerseys, oppose or support? Would other community groups, Sunrise Movement, 350 PDX, NMF, the numerous bike and pedestrian advocate groups, affordable housing advocates, etc. support or oppose? Would Black owned civil project contractors oppose or accept the contract for demolishing the freeway? Would black owned contracting companies support or oppose the urban build out of the entirety of the land by black developers? Would black owned business support or oppose block after block after block of Black Community owned and controlled space? Would the students at Harriet Tubman support or oppose removing the freeway: support or oppose enabling future Black Community leaders to own and develop the entirety of the land and truly rebuild the Albina Community?Even if these groups had contemplated and dropped this concept in 2012, as argued by ODOT in their response to my question, I would hope that in 2021, society would come to a different conclusion when presented with the opportunity to support the Black Community s vision for the neighborhood revitalization and to maximize restorative justice that supports the historic and local community s desired outcomes, needs, and values.I had thought at first that my original one paragraph comment to the HAAB asking if they would consider freeway removal would be the extent of my contribution and I would probably have submitted a much shorter comment in this process today if it had not been for ODOT s deceptive response and falling back on decisions made in 2012 for the reason not advancing truly differentiated project alternatives today. I stopped engaging after submitting my public comment for the April 6th meeting given the need for white community members like me to sit down and respect the forum for the black community created through the HAAB. I was disappointed but accepted that Chair Simpson shut down any further contemplation or discussion among the HAAB members of removal of the freeway, or other alternatives such as a baby step of not expanding but capping the freeway - anything that would require further environmental assessment. I left the final (edited) word with Chair Simpson when he noted that the project will be moving forward in design and will not be conducting any further environmental assessment. But . . . as part of the Environmental Assessment review now being conducted to determine if maybe a further environmental impact assessment is warranted, to determine if maybe ODOT was actually inappropriately keeping a project of this significant impact within the boundaries of just one proposal: freeway expansion and cap. In reviewing the Environmental Assessment, I urge the Federal Government to remember and assess Chair Simpson s vomit session , as you are tasked with evaluating the validity, authenticity, and transparency of ODOT s public engagement and the resulting support presented for The Project. It is my hope that it helps you reach the conclusion that so many of us in the Portland region (as well as climate, social justice, good government etc advocates throughout the US and World) see as obvious: that the project s impact will be significant enough that it truly warrants a full Environmental Impact Statement analyzing significantly differentiated project alternatives which is required for a sound public process and vital to significant infrastructure projects in the 2020 s and beyond. |
| 7618 | Eric | Von Hulha | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There are countless environmental impacts from expanding a freeway. It does not take an expert to see that. It seems like ODOT is scared that conducting an impact statement might reveal that the environmental impacts exceed what people are willing to accept. At the very least, if not demonstrating cowardice, it does show incompetence to Oregon taxpayers that their transportation bureau isn t doing what should be their due diligence on a multi million dollar project. And the worst part is it shows the indifference to very real concerns to our collective health. |
| 7619 | Ellen | Mendoza | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The last thing we need is more space for cars. There has to be study of alternatives to furthering carbon dioxide spewing vehicles! |
| 7620 | Phillip | Kast | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I strongly believe a full EIS should be conducted for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I have been following this project for many years now, and it is clear that the long term impacts of increasing freeway capacity have never adequately been considered. How many more cars will a widened I-5 contain? How much will be due to induced demand? Over this project's lifetime, we will need to decarbonize our infrastructure, and probably reduce individual vehicle transportation. The project is aimed in the wrong direction.Additionally, this work has been an expensive distraction from the solution that already should have been implemented: congestion pricing. Pricing traffic through the Rose Quarter would likely have already solved the congestion problems. Widening and rebuilding the freeway is dramatically more expensive and disruptive, and only should have been undertaken after congestion pricing had been shown not to work -- ODOT has worked through the available options in the wrong order.Finally, while I support the need for restorative justice in RQ/Albina, the > $1 billion price tag is an incredibly inefficient way to accomplish those goals. But, if this project is to go forward, at the very least it should hold freeway width constant and focus solely on caps. |
| 7621 | Lester | Oehler | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Dear Oversight Committee,I would like to express my concern over a lack of a complete Environmental Impact Statement for the Rose Quarter Expansion. As a graduate of Portland State University, that has lived in and loved Portland I have seen first hand the transportation crisis that ODOT has created in Portland. The endless congestion and automobile pollution across the city is nothing short of a travesty. This organization has made a mockery of our environment and climate goals and pledges. It has made visiting, working and living in Portland more complicated, expensive and harmful to human health that it ever needed to be. This proposed project seems to double down on past failures, at a time when an entirely new and sustainable direction is needed.With the climate and budgets stressed, and breaking down at pace, a complete analysis of the environmental impacts of this proposed project must be included in the decision-making process.Thank you for your consideration, and public service. Sincerely, Lester Oehler |
| 7622 | Christopher | Schwanberg Guthrie | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is not only unethical but a potential liability to build any freeway expansion in an urban center without a complete and thorough EIS. Do not put the people and environment of Portland at risk simply to expand a freeway which will, through induced demand, be just as grid locked once completed. |
| 7623 | Andrew | Morgan Taylor | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I strongly believe that a full environmental impact statement should be conducted for the proposed freeway expansion in Portland's Rose Quarter. I also believe that any investigation about air quality and fossil fuel emissions from a future potential project should be conducted with transparent data and assumptions.Given the severity of climate change, expensive publicly funded projects which increase reliance on automobile transportation within heavily urbanized areas should face a very, very high bar and a lot of scrutiny. There are only so many public dollars to spend on transportation projects. While automobile-focused projects may have been less controversial in the past, public priorities have shifted due to climate change. In light of strong public opposition, I urge ODOT to go above and beyond the minimum requirements for squeezing this project through. Conducting a full EIS of this project would be a wise way to spend public funding. |
| 7624 | Sarah | Iannarone | Dear Ms. Channel,Happy New Year. Please accept The Street Trust's written feedback on the 2022 Supplemental EA on the Rose Quarter Improvement Project.Respectfully submitted,Sarah1/4/2023To: Megan Channell, ODOT project directorRe: I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental AssessmentDear Ms. Channell,It is with disappointment that we write to you once again (see enclosed letter from 2019, below) requesting that ODOT undertake a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of the Rose Quarter Improvement Project (RQIP) so that project impacts and mitigation can be betterdeveloped and understood by the public. The goal of the NEPA process is to empowercommunity voices which ensure a better project. ODOT s failure to heed the myriad concernsof diverse community stakeholders early in the process has caused unnecessary delays amidst ballooning project costs and increasing climate chaos. Last year, The Street Trust was invited to participate in the Independent Covers Assessment(ICA) of the design process convened by the Oregon Transportation Commission and led by aconsultant team of local and national urban design, engineering, and environmental experts. We listened deeply and learned a great deal alongside many long-time residents of Lower Albina who spent significant time envisioning a better future for their place and brainstorming how to best reconnect the neighborhood and promote economic development in theircommunity. We are grateful for and support the local leadership of Albina Vision Trust (AVT)and the Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB), and also heartened that Governor Brown took seriously the health concerns of the Harriet Tubman Middle School community. That said, while the Hybrid 3 option arrived at represents a significant improvement overprevious iterations of the highway covers presented by ODOT, and while we fully support the building of developable highway covers reconnecting Lower Albina, The Street Trust has multiple concerns about the Hybrid 3 alternative as proposed, which we believe a full EIS could help address: 1. Southbound off-ramp relocation impacts on safety for people walking, rolling, andbicycling. Further study is necessary to fully understand the impacts of the relocation of the southbound off-ramp next to the Moda Center. We are particularly concerned about projected worsened conditions for people walking, rolling, and bicycling at the intersection of NE Wheeler Avenue/ N Ramsay Way/ N Williams Avenue, includingdecreases in safety and increases in travel times, as well as interference with the City of Portland s Green Loop project. As proposed, the Hybrid 3 option will likely exacerbate unsafe conditions for vulnerable street users along the adjacent grid. (Please see the letter from the City of Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee.i) Further, we are concerned that the option of eliminating the southbound ramp at this intersection (which would also address ballooning cost concerns) was not seriouslyconsidered in the development of Hybrid 3 or SEA. In fact, it appeared to us as ICA workshop participants that ODOT did not allow the ICA project team nor workshop participants to seriously consider elimination of the southbound off-ramp in their development and deliberation of design options over the course of the workshops,undermining the I (independent) in ICA.2. Regional congestion pricing and tolling have not been studied in SEA. Much remains unknown about the impacts of pricing in the Portland metro area, including on I-5(RMPP) and the Columbia River interstate bridge replacement (IBR); both of which have NEPA and other stakeholder processes underway to evaluate options and determine project specifics, including rate-setting. How pricing is enacted on both projects will significantly impact traffic modeling for RQIP. It may well be that accurately pricing the right-of-way to reduce vehicle miles traveled in the I-5 corridor will reduce the widthof the highway necessary at Rose Quarter to accommodate demand (with lower project costs and GHG pollution) but we will not know without a full EIS which incorporates this pricing into the analysis.3. Ballooning project costs and lack of clarity from ODOT on control over buildable caps to achieve restorative justice. It remains unclear in the current SEA how ODOT plans toguarantee to AVT, HAAB, and Portland s Black community writ large that both the freeway widening and installation of the highway cover will be funded with equal urgency. It is also unclear how control and development benefits of the covers will be given over to Black Portlanders. Since ODOT began this project, the Biden Administration has prioritized innovation and reparative justice by reconnecting communities that were previously cut off from economic opportunities bytransportation infrastructure. ii For this reason, a full EIS is warranted which includes analysis of building caps reconnecting Lower Albina either without widening I-5 orremoving I-5 from Lower Albina altogether and returning the full inventory of developable real estate to community governance to achieve restorative justice. In 2022, New York Governor Hochul announced over $3B in funding to reconnect communities across her state by removing freeways rather than expanding them. She claims, These projects will help right the wrongs of the past through safer and reliable transit networks, landscapes designed to bring communities together, and routes that are friendlier for pedestrians and bikers. A full EIS would enable us to explore the costs and benefits of a similar path forward for Lower Albina and Oregon. iii 4. Oregon s epidemic of traffic fatalities and the public health costs for Oregon s BIPOC communities of misdirected safety investments. In the first half of 2022, Oregon had the 10th highest traffic fatality rate in the U.S. with 1.45 roadway deaths for every 100 million miles traveled, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. iv Racial disparities in traffic fatalities are pervasive with dangerous conditions and deadly roads disproportionately affecting BIPOC and low-income people. vvi Locally, Multnomah County s 2021 REACH Transportation Crash and SafetyReport highlights the racial disparities in local conditions: Black residents were killed intraffic at nearly twice the rate of white residents between 2013-2017. vii The Street Trust is concerned that In terms of racial justice and equity, as currently proposed, the Rose Quarter project could not only reduce safety for public and active transportation in the immediate vicinity but also siphon off precious transportation dollars for safety investments on roadways where people are seriously injured or killed in traffic daily statewide. These wider community public health impacts were not factored into the SEA but could be considered through a full EIS. 5. Finally, our concerns from 2019 (below) about the likely impact on walking, biking and transit during the construction period and the lack of information in the EA about how this will be mitigated have not been adequately addressed through the SEA. Solutionsto the problem of disruption caused by the construction of the freeway expansion and additional caps in the Hybrid 3 option have not been proposed through the SEA. This remains a primary route between downtown and North and Northeast Portland. Disruption and harm during the construction period to current travelers (and discouragement of potential travelers) walking, biking, rolling, and riding through this area is no more an acceptable outcome in 2023 than it was in 2019. Sincerely, Sarah Iannarone March 29, 2019 Oregon Department of Transportation info@i5RoseQuarter.org Attention Megan Channell 123 NW Flanders St. Portland, OR 97209 Dear Ms. Channell: I m writing on behalf of The Street Trust to provide comment on the I-5 Rose Quarter Environmental Assessment (EA) and to request ODOT undertake an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) so that project impacts and mitigation can be better developedand understood by the public. The City of Portland adopted the I-5 Broadway Weidler Facility Plan in 2012 following a two-year planning process. The plan called for:● Adding auxiliary lanes and full-width shoulders (within existing right-of-way) to reduce dangerous traffic weaves and allow disabled vehicles to move out of traffic lanes.● Rebuilding structures at Broadway, Weidler, Vancouver and Williams and adding a lid over the freeway that will simplify construction, increase development potential and improve the urban environment.● Moving the I-5 southbound on-ramp to Weidler to improve circulation and safety● Improving conditions for pedestrian and bicycle travel by adding newconnections over the freeway and safety pedestrian and bicycle facilities in the interchange area. The EA indicates that the proposed project fails to achieve the objective of the Plan. Inparticular:● Proposed lids are poorly conceived. There is no evidence they will increase development or improve the urban environment.● The move of the Weidler on-ramp will not improve circulation and safety. The EA documents that project will degrade travel times for transit.● The EA indicates no improvement in conditions or safety for bicycles and pedestrians, even though existing conditions are, in fact, quite poor. ODOT should undertake a design effort targeted to achieve meaningful benefits for bikes and pedestrians. The bike and pedestrian facilities in the EA are only conceptual. Without an explicit commitment to improvements for these modes,they may get worse, rather than better, as the design process continues. The Street Trust is alarmed by the likely impact on walking, biking and transit during the construction period and the lack of information in the EA about how this will be mitigated. To achieve state, regional and local goals for reducing drive-alone trips, we need to significantly increase use of walking, biking and transit. Extraordinary efforts will need to be taken to mitigate the huge disruption that will be caused by the construction of the project in an area that sees 8,000 cyclists per day and is the primary portal between downtown and North and Northeast Portland. A five-year setback is not an acceptable outcome for our climate change and growth management goals nor is itacceptable to the individuals who will be impacted. ODOT should also undertake an EIS to address the concern and opportunity presented by the Albina Vision Plan and the project impacts on children attending Harriet Tubman Middle School. The project could contribute to redress of the negative impact of transportation facilities on people of color. The EA fails to properly address these impacts and present acceptable mitigation strategies. Thank you for your consideration of these comments. Sincerely, Jillian Detweiler Executive Director |
| 7625 | Jackson | Slocum | We must not build the rose quarter expansion project. We know more lanes does not work to reduce congestion nor increase safety. Freeways destroy the cities they run through, which in Portland's case means wrecking our riverfront property, causing asthma, causing noise, etc etc etc. We need lids, not lanes, we need an EIS, and we are tired of ODOT lying about how more lanes equals less congestion. To top off the insanity, the desire to put a highway exit right into one of our biggest bike paths is so unfair. The damage that you are doing to our city will take decades to undo. We should be removing I5 from the city entirely, not making it bigger. |
| 7627 | Maria | Opie | Please don t widen I-5 through the rose quarter. You bring more pollution. That is really sad and depressing. Improve public Transportaion. |
| 7628 | David | Collins | The Revised Build Alternative does not make it safer for vulnerable users to bicycle through the Rose Quarter area. The Revised Build Alternative will add an intersection at the connection with the I-5 SB off ramp and N Williams, will route more traffic through the intersection at the connection with the I-5 NB ramp and NE Weidler and will route significantly more traffic through the intersection of N Williams and N Weidler. The proposed mitigation measures have a high potential to make it more dangerous to travel by bicycle through the project area, especially since many of the drivers of trucks and automobiles will be unfamiliar with the area since they will only occasionally use the area for events taking place at the Rose Quarter, and or making deliveries to the Lower Albina Industrial area |
| 7629 | David | Collins | The Revised Build Alternative degrades the Green Loop.This alternative proposes to add 3 new double right-hand turn lanes intersections along the planned route of the Green Loop, which will follow both Broadway and Weidler. The Multimodal Risk/Safety Assessment developed for the project states that existing complex intersection features with higher bicycle/pedestrian risk potential include slip lanes and double turn lanes. While some of these risk factors may be addressed through signal timing, these conditions create uncomfortable conflict points for cyclists. |
| 7630 | David | Collins | The claim that the project will improve the safety of adjacent surface streets is false. See pg ES-3. This area has some of the most concentrated uses by pedestrians (accessing the Rose Quarter) and cyclists (commuting north on Williams and east/west on Weidler and Broadway), but the project makes it more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. |
| 7631 | Mark | Dow | The full impacts of the RQFE would unfold relentlessly over decades. An EIS is necessary to understand those impacts, and how they might be mitigated. Other reasonable plans that don't include increased traffic through a densely populated region can only be fairly evaluated with the information an EIS provides. Transportation systems will change in the coming decades, and freeway automobile capacity expansion is not the change communities want or need. |
| 7632 | David | Collins | There is a Lower Cost Alternative. Based on the Draft Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report, it appears that the Regional Mobility Pricing Project (RMPP) would reduce congestion more than the Rose Quarter Interchange (RQI) project would. The goal of reducing congestion within the RQI project area could be achieved at a fraction of the cost through implementation of the RMPP (and not building the RQI project. |
| 7633 | David | McIlnay | We are a family of three (all over the age of 18) who own a home in the Elliot neighborhood and work + attend PPS school in the Portland metro region. We understand that ODOT has proposed additional improvements to the I-5 Rose Quarter project as a response to the Supplemental Environmental Assessment in the form of :I-5 ramp to ramp connections Highway covers Hancock crossing I-5 southbound off ramp relocation upgrades to bicycle and pedestrian facilities on the local street network near the Broadway-Weidler interchange to improve accessibility and safety. We are not in favor of any improvements focused solely on I-5 through-put as this has always been the traditional highway design criteria and has proven destructive in ignoring the value of community building as an equally valued design criteria. Climate change metrics and air quality are critical for community health but are not measurably improved by the proposed project. Improving local/ global health must be an added design criteria in 2023 in view of lessons learned from 20th century highway design projects nationwide. Prioritizing EV's, and auto-shutoff of combustion engines at stops, or volume control using tolling as both policy and incentive in the US is leading to faster drops in our transportation carbon footprint that cannot be addressed in highway design in terms of idling concerns (as shown in ODOT air quality graphs). The goal of this project cannot be "more vehicles thru" as a response to idling. The metrics of the SEA response should demonstrate future climate sustainability design criteria to the Federal review. Additional SEA data should be required to demonstrate greater measurable air quality improvements as a direct result of this use of public funds. We support the implementation of congestion pricing/equitable tolling in lieu of any I-5 travel lanes expansion. We support use of priority funding to correct some of the legacy damage to the city of Portland Albina-Elliot areas in the form of highway covers, adding Hancock crossing, and local urban design/ bike-ped improvements. We support the relocation of the I-5 off ramp to the MODA district and ramp-to-ramp lane improvements to smooth entry/exit movement in the area proposed as a community-restoring design by removing the current ramp arrival into the Broadway/Wiedler corridor. However, the cost is astounding at $1.5b. What is not evident is how the added "auxillary" lanes will require further excavation to the affected neighborhoods. Conditions of approval must include zero-intrusion on existing properties or mitigation at the minimum rate of 2-to-one replacement of land. sidewalk design and street crossings for people walking, rolling and biking through the area - this is the number one critical component needed to erase the legacy of a vehicle dominated landscape along the i-5 corridor imposed on the Albina-Elliot neighborhoods corridor. Both the master-plan proposed in the Environmental Supplement look and feel of the street environment and gathering spaces for people- Again the street section designs must take their cue from multimodal precedents established with the Green Loop and other PBOT design best practices including separated bike lanes and pedestrian + bike safe intersections, people+bike preference traffic signals - all which demonstrate a Vision Zero level of safety . Public open space in combination with mixed-use development is needed in the Broadway/Weidler corridor to provide people and activities not reliant on curb-cut commercial activities like gas stations and car dealerships. These designated zones would be expected in the highway covers proposed, as well as current unused/paved lots. City Block developments should consider the placement and integration of transit stops in urban design by both city+TriMet design standards, and private development requirements. maximize Disadvantaged Business Enterprise contracting opportunities, estimated at $250 million support economic opportunities that honor the local communities' needs and provide the potential for wealth creation. MBE inclusion is a requirement anytime a project uses Federal Funds. The ODOT SEA response must demonstrate how this statement is being implemented beyond minimum Federal/State requirements. Thank you! This is the next great opportunity in correcting the collateral damage of the American Highway Act and restoring American communities! Sincerely - The McIlnay Family |
| 7634 | Jeanette | DeCastro | Please do additional Environmental impact study. For the price of this project, you could build 40+ Blumeuhauer Bridges, 5+ Division (Rapid Transit) street safety improvements, or half a length of the Orange Line MAX.Send the freight around the city. Abernathy's getting all spruced up. Give local options and plan and then BUILD what you want: local traffic off of I-5. Human being here in N Portland have given enough to the highways and interstate freeway system. Enough.Bonus: Raimore does great at local and transit projects, too. |
| 7635 | Deane | Funk | I've lived in Portland for more than 30 years, in Sellwood, Hillsdale, and the Sunnyside neighborhood. While I've been a bike commuter for nearly all that time, logging more than 60,000 miles in that time. Yet, I believe the improvements proposed for the Rose Quarter are crucial to the long term economic health of the entire state of Oregon. Your process has been open and more than respectful of the diverse viewpoints in the community, as demonstrated by the adjustments made to community interests. A traded sector economy requires a functional inter and intra state transportation system. This project responds to that macro view, and local interests. Do not allow the passionate few, however well-meaning, to dictate terms to the 4 million people in this state. Volume does not equal equity, and certainly not the majority, who may not know or have the inclination to comment. Let's get this done and honor the 10 years of input that had already created a consensus. This project, along with the bridge replacement will ensure Portland and Oregon thrive in a global economy, while ancillary policies make substantive contributions to the reduction of greenhouse gasses. Deane Funk, 35 year resident of Portland. |
| 7636 | Erica | Soule | Expanding I-5 is an injustice to Portland, the Black community, and to our environment. We know that expanding freeways does not reduce congestion but rather induce demand. I-5 will continue to fill up, continue to create more pollution, and continue to harm our neighborhoods. Portland and Oregon need to continue to be at the forefront of reducing driving and creating livable communities rather than marching backwards, which is what an I-5 expansion will do. DO NOT EXPAND I-5. |
| 7637 | Stephen | Laurent | By adding lanes and expanding I-5 in the Rose Quarter, this project will increase the number of cars and trucks on the road. There is lots of precedent that traffic volume expands to meet road volume, and this will be no different. Money should be invested in improving access to clean public transportation, including rail, bus, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure that works for the people who live in the community. Every opportunity should be taken to restore the neighborhoods destroyed by decades of racist public and private development in the Albina community. Freeways should be capped, not expanded, so that these scars can begin to heal, and connections can be rebuilt. Please, do not expand the highway! |
| 7638 | Nicholas | LaRue | I do not support this project for just about every reason under the sun. Costly, demand inducing, climate agnostic, minimal benefit, needs more study with the greater Interstate bridge project. This just feels like a 1950s transportation project and not a project for the current century. |
| 7639 | Tom | Cooney | One, poor website design. In comments, if you click the expand window tab, all entered information is lost. What were you thinking? Two, the project is fundamentally flawed and will only induce future demand at tremendous expense. ODOT should wait and implement congestion pricing before spending any money on this project. Congestion pricing will have a much greater and sustained benefit on congestion and thus safety, along with improvements in air quality. Three, the movement of the SB I-5 off ramp to N. Williams/Ramsey/NE Wheeler will markedly increase traffic in this area and create risk of of cycle-motorized vehicle collisions. The described 'mitigation' plan is suspect. This is one of the highest cycle volume sections in PDX and plan will increase exposure to exhaust and risk of collision. Sadly, neither ODOT nor PBOT appear to have any recent volume data (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/walking-biking-transit-safety/bicycle-counts#toc-past-bicycle-counts); (https://gis-pdx.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/traffic-volume-counts/explore?location=45.532924%2C-122.669245%2C17.00).The only data is from 2019, where by deducting vehicle counts for N. Williams north of NE Broadway, you can infer > 1000 northbound bicycle trips per day in this corridor.Four, the WB cycling infrastructure at NE Broadway and N. Williams is currently and will remain dangerous. I have cycle commuted from NE PDX to SW PDX for > 20 years and NEVER approach the Broadway Bridge using that interchange. Just too uncomfortable. White and green paint are not 'safety' measures with unprotected (i.e. physically separated) bike lanes. |
| 7640 | Jay | Monk | Hello, I'm writing to submit comment on ODOT's supplement environmental assessment report. In my opinion, the section on transportation does not adequately consider the impact of induced demand increasing traffic volume. The downstream effects of this absence are notable. The impact on non-auto users will likely be greater for there being an increase in traffic. I am thinking of the affects on signal lights changing to allow for more vehicle traffic and slowing the travel of bikers and walkers. In terms of climate affects, it seems like this project could do better for mitigating the effects of emissions produced by vehicles, and considering the induced demand greater traffic volume. I believe that the investment of resources for transportation should be directed to mass transit, such as by adding rapid travel lightrail linds connecting communities across the PNW region. I would like ODOT to do more to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere that is (and has been already) produced as a result of the massive vehicle use that is commonplace across Oregon today. My impression is that congestion pricing of vehicles driving during peak hours could be used to reduce the slowdowns and traffic that this project is trying to address. In the open house content I did not see any examples of the effects of congestion tolling on traffic through the Rose Quarter. This suggests ODOT has not considered tolling to reduce congestion and I believe that needs to be considered. Thanks for reading my comment. |
| 7641 | Miles | Javes | The priorities of this plan are the antithesis of it community goals of fighting climate change and livability. You would think highway expansion would be a concession of capping and burying a blight to our neighborhoods like I 5, but even that is backwards. Our city is a place where people live not an accommodation to cars commuting through. Treat it that way and end this farce of a highway expansion |
| 7642 | Brad | Halverson | Hello - thank you for providing the SEA for the I-5 Rose Quarter project. I support the project and moving the I-5 SB offramp to empty across from the Rose Garden/Moda Center. However, I think it will be challenging to keep the traffic safely flowing through this area during event times as well as rush hours in the AM & PM. I strongly support examining if the Hancock Street overpass can be utilized along with Flint for NB bicyclists to bypass the very congested I-5 SB offramp area on Williams. Another option would be to have 2-way cycle tracks on Vancouver so cyclists could avoid the section of Williams between the new I-5 SB offramp north to Broadway. Be creative so there are less car/cyclists interactions in the area so the entire project can be successful. |
| 7643 | NA | NA | I have personally witnessed multiple accidents in the south bound I84 exit lane. It is clear for the safety of the public that the design of the corridor needs to be updated. Additionally it is clear there is unnecessary emissions due to slow traffic from excess merging. This project looks like it will allow necessary movement of people and freight to move more efficiently and safely. |
| 7644 | Sean | Filbert | I am commenting in opposition to freeway expansion on the grounds that expanding freeways has a demonstrable effect on climate change, and makes traffic worse |
| 7645 | Shawn | Granton | I believe that any freeway expansion, no matter how you dress it up, is bad news. We need to be shrinking freeways, not expanding them. We should be finding alternatives to transportation than adding more vehicles (especially single occupancy motor vehicles) to roads. I am against this project. |
| 7647 | Chase | Klotter | As a Portland native, and environmental advocate I strongly disagree with an expansion of the I5 freeway in North Portland. At the very least ODOT is required to complete an EIS, which should show that an expansion is not feasible or recommended. |
| 7648 | Nick | Sauvie | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT should be investing in multi-modal transportation projects that address climate change, not expanding freeways. The information provided to the public does not justify the proposed project. The public deserves an environmental impact statement. |
| 7649 | Wendie | Siverts | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a thorough Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Our home is few blocks from I5 just north of the project area. Induced demand caused by the increase in capacity will expose our family to even more highway. Our oldest child attends Harriet Tubman MS, and our 3rd grader will as well in a few years. Relocating the school is disruptive to students and families, and does nothing to help the hundreds of children that live near the affected area. We are in favor of capping the freeway to improve access between the neighborhoods, like ours, that are adjacent to I5. Thank you for considering our input. Wendie Siverts |
| 7650 | Chris | Warner |
Chris Warner (He/Him) Director The City of Portland ensures meaningful access to city programs, services, and activities to comply with Civil Rights Title VI and ADA Title II laws and reasonably provides: translation, interpretation, modifications, accommodations, alternative formats, auxiliary aids and services. It is the policy of the City of Portland that no person shall be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination in any city program, service, or activity on the grounds of race, color, national origin, disability, or other protected class status. Adhering to Civil Rights Title VI and ADA Title II civil rights laws, the City of Portland ensures meaningful access to City programs, services, and activities by reasonably providing: translation and interpretation, modifications, accommodations, alternative formats, and auxiliary aids and services. To request these services, contact the Portland Bureau of Transportation at 503-823-5185 or 311 (503-823-4000), for Relay Service & TTY: 711. January 4, 2023 Kris Strickler, ODOT Director c/o I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project 888 SW 5th Ave. Suite 600 Portland, OR 97204 Re: I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Supplemental EA Public Comment Period Dear Director Strickler, Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the I-5 Rose Quarter Project Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) public comment period as a participating agency. This project has the potential to remedy past harms, create an environment that supports community redevelopment, and provide benefits for people walking, biking, and taking transit in parallel with the freeway improvements. But I want to underscore the importance of our collaboration going forward. We must work together to ensure community commitments are upheld and stakeholder voices are heard. We must work together to recognize, address, and prevent repetition of the injustices suffered by communities of color throughout Portland s history. And we must work together to achieve the technical design refinements that are required for this project to succeed. ODOT completed analysis of the Revised Build Alternative based on a preliminary design of the Hybrid 3 concept. Per the Governor s January 2022 Letter of Agreement, the City has identified the need for additional technical exploration as the preliminary design, which was developed prior to our reengagement on the project, does not yet meet the conditions of agreement. This includes but is not limited to additional technical analysis on local street circulation impacts and possible need for modification. The topics below highlight general areas of concern further elaborated through our detailed comments attached to this letter: Revisions to the project are needed for alignment with city policy as it relates to prioritizing people walking, rolling, bicycling, and taking transit. Examples include but are not limited to PedPDX, the TSP and the 2035 Comprehensive plan. The project must result in a safe, comfortable, and complete network for those walking, rolling, and bicycling. 2 Lack of clarity in how commitments made as part of the Independent Highway Cover Assessment are provided for. Specifically, how the design will accommodate the community vision to develop a highway cover that can be catalytic in the restoration of high-quality land and provide opportunities for community wealth for generations to come. The project must provide construction mitigations that ensure pedestrian and bicyclist safety with clear wayfinding, safe and efficient event area access and circulation, and that reduces climate impacts via chosen materials and methods. Traffic analysis needs to be completed that reflects that the project area is designated as a Multimodal Mixed-Use Area, which provides flexibility for determining significant effects of land use actions, by lifting mobility standard requirements at ODOT facilities while still applying transportation standards such safety and multimodal access. Additionally, traffic design must consider the impact of pricing on I-5 and the potential for the planned Regional Mobility Pricing Program to change or lower vehicle travel demand in the area. The project must develop traffic management that provides safe and efficient movement of freight and event district traffic management, including safe and cohesive local and regional access and circulation for all modes. Letters from various city advisory committees, including the Bicycle Advisory Committee, Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Portland Freight Committee, the Design Commission and Historic Landmarks Commission are attached to this City of Portland SEA comment letter. Many perspectives from these committees are reflected in the city SEA comment log. The letters represent additional stakeholder concerns related to pedestrian and bicycle safety and comfort, transit access and performance, freight mobility, and greenhouse gases. We must work together to honor the community s vision for development of a highway cover that creates a network of places that support both Black and other Portlanders. To do so, and as stated in the Independent Cover Assessment, this requires a fundamental shift in design approach from an auto-focused street network and circulation system to a pedestrian-oriented street scale that improves pedestrian safety and experience and supports place-making and wealth-creation outcomes. Our ongoing collaboration to address the technical conditions during the future design phase, in consideration of the comments received during the SEA public comment period, must also continue to reflect this shift. To achieve this, we expect that extensive ongoing engagement with the City and project committees as well as with Metro, Multnomah County, TriMet, Portland Streetcar, local businesses, and stakeholders including the Albina Vision Trust and Rip City Management, and the public, will be required to inform design refinement and the many tradeoffs that must be considered and ultimately agreed upon. 3 Based on the Governor s letter of agreement and as part of our future work together, we look forward to continuing to collaborate to refine the design as it relates to local circulation and access; signal phasing and timing throughout the affected street network area; pedestrian, bicycle and public transit facilities and operations through the Rose Quarter area; and Rose Quarter event access and traffic management. Final design elements involving the local street network and any modifications of the state s system that impacts city facilities will require city review and approval as part of the local permitting process. We are eager to advance our partnership to collaboratively develop the project and bring new community connections that support economic growth and an opportunity to support the community vision for the Historic Lower Albina neighborhood. Sincerely, Chris Warner Director, Portland Bureau of Transportation Cc: Keith Lynch, Oregon Division Administrator, Federal Highway Administration Attached: City of Portland SEA Comment Log Pedestrian Advisory Committee Letter Bicycle Advisory Committee Letter Portland Freight Committee SEA Comment Letter Historic Landmarks Commission & City of Portland Design Commission joint SEA Comment Letter Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment 1 Morgan Steele BDS 12.07.2022 SEA App D D-10 Water Resources Compliance with CoP's Title 10 and the Erosion and Sediment Control Manual should be added here. 2 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.8.2.1 52 Below comment in response to this statement: the City would be unable to implement the goal of supporting high-density, mixed-use development with safer and greater pedestrian and bicycle connectivity This seems to imply that City would be unable to provide safer and greater conditions for bicycling without this project. This is untrue. There needs to be careful consideration between the no-build and revised scenarios for how they impact bicycle transportation, walking and transit. The North Williams corridor is a critical segment. The no-build scenario has low traffic conditions in a major bicycle corridor. The existing bicycle infrastructure is appropriate for creating conditions that minimize delay and accommodate large volumes of cyclists [Portland Transportation System Plan; Major City Bikeways Classification description]. It creates conditions that are arguably safe, comfortable, and convenient for people of all ages and abilities [Central City 2035 Policy 3.10, Portland Comprehensive Plan Policy 9.21]. While working in earnest to maintain and improve upon conditions found in the no build scenario, the revised build concepts under discussion are far from being funded plan sets so the risk of an outcome contrary to city policies remains a strong possibility. Indeed, desire for similar improvements on other parts of the plan are eliciting discussions about betterments with the city having to pay for them. This strong possibility of negative outcomes is bolstered by the difficulty of successfully addressing the introduction of freeway traffic volumes and behaviors into an area dense with walking, biking and transit. There does not appear to exist a good mechanism by which conditions for biking, walking and transit in the No Build can be compared to the very different environment that will develop with the Revised Build. Similarly, N Williams is a Major Transit Priority Street. As such it is intended to facilitate the frequent and reliable movement of transit vehicles [Transportation System Plan Major Transit Priority Streets]. It serves as a major egress for two bus routes, one of which is a frequent service route. It is not clear how the Revised Build scenario will improve upon the No-Build, low-traffic egress provided by North Williams. With limited space, the introduction of freeway ramp traffic to the corridor, and protected signal phasing at Weidler Street it appears that conditions for transit will deteriorate, which is at odds with city policy. 3 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.8.2.2 56 While the revised build scenario would seem to superficially meet some policies for the Lloyd District found within the Central City 2035 plan at the least the project seems to not egregiously violate them the scenario still misses the overall thrust of those policies for the district. Policy 5.LD-3 discourages new automobile-oriented uses and encourages surface lot development the enhances the pedestrian environment. Policy 3.4 expresses the desire to manage Central City transportation so as to prioritize modes other than the automobile to accommodate travel demand. Similarly, the project obviates certain core elements of the Lloyd District policies, especially those associated with the Green Loop. Both the Clackamas Crossing and the Green Loop figure prominently into the Central City 2035 Plan. Indeed, an entire Volume of the Central City 2035 Plan is dedicated to the Green Loop [Volume 5B Implementation: The Green Loop]. The permanent loss of the potential for a Clackamas Crossing because of the design found in the Revised Build scenario is contrary to the vision of the Lloyd District and the Central City because of the role the Crossing was intended to play in both the Green Loop and as a feature of the Clackamas Flexible Street Strategy, which is intended as a string of desired parks roughly along NE Clackamas Street The Central City 2035 Recommended Draft Studies List shows the Clackamas Flexible Street Strategy extending to the Rose Quarter via the Clackamas Structure [Central City 2035 Volume 2B Transportation System Plan Amendments]. Shown as a New Connection on both the bicycle and pedestrian Classification maps, the Clackamas Crossing was intended to contribute meaningfully to both. The Revised Build scenario posits that the Green Loop will run along NE Broadway and Weidler through the area of freeway interchange ramps. The Design Principles for the Green Loop identified in the Central City 2035 Plan [Volume 5B] include that it be a multi-use path, include a connected canopy, they the pathway feature wayfinding and environmental design tools to brand and identify it as part of the Green Loop and include unique street furnishing to accomplish the same. Achieving these design principles will be difficult with the Green Loop relocated to Broadway and Weidler. Those corridors will be constrained by available width and will also have to fulfill their roles as Major City Bikeways. As Major City Bikeways, these corridors are also principal commute and transportation routes for people using bicycles. While the functions of the Green Loop and major bicycle transportation corridors can co-exist, to do so requires available width that does not seem present in the Revised Hybrid design. 4 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.8.2.1 52 Below comment in response to: the No-Build Alternative would have an adverse effect on the City of Portland s long-term vision for land development within the API This is presumably based on not achieving the realization of the Central City Multimodal Mixed Use Area (MMA) and the subsequent need to apply long-established TPR requirements for automobile congestion. However it s not clear that ODOT s written concurrence is required for an MMA designation that is more than one-quarter mile of any interchange ramp [ Portland Central City Multimodal Mixed Use Area Agreement between the City of Portland and the Oregon Department of Transportation June 15, 2016, Central City 2035 Volume 2B Transportation System Plan Amendments]. This indicates that many of the development goals in the Lloyd District could still be implemented so long as they were more than five blocks away from the interchange ramps. Even developments within a short distance of freeway interchanges may be allowed depending on the outcomes of a congestion analysis. Only in the scenario in which new structures generate significant levels of congestion would they have a potentially negative outcome on the freeways. Congestion pricing and equitable transportation pricing in general have elsewhere proven effective tools to minimize automobile transportation and congestion. Under such a scenario increased development even within one-quarter mile of freeway interchanges--would not neceesarily have a negative effect on the freeways and could be allowed. 5 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.8.2.3 56 Below is in response to: Because the Revised Build Alternative complies with the City of Portland comprehensive plan It is not clear that the Revised Build does fully comply with city policies. As noted elsewhere, the Revised Build superficially meets the letter of some policies for the Lloyd District. However, the absence of the Clackamas Crossing and the difficulty of achieving design principles for The Green Loop both contained within the policies for the Central City [Central City 2035 Plan] are both not in compliance with City Policies. In addition, it is not clear that the Revised Build Scenario is capable of improving upon the No Build Alternative in regard to city policies that: emphasize the safety and comfort of people bicycling on the city s bikeway network; reflect a desire to create conditions that make bicycling more attractive than driving [Comprehensive Plan Policies 9.21 and 9.20, respectively]; to minimize the delay of people bicycling; to design for large volumes of people bicycling; and to build the highest quality facilities possible [Portland Transportation System Plan, Major City Bikeways]. 6 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 1.4 4 Below in response to: Between 2011 and 2015, there were 268 crashes on the local street network in the Project Area This does not paint an accurate picture of the crash scenario. Extend this comparison to consider PDO v A and B crashes and fatal crashes. Extend that comparison to the 881 crashes on the highway system, too. Only by assessing the quality of the crashes can we adequately assess need. 7 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 1.5 5 Below comment in response to: Goals may be carried forward beyond the NEPA process What does this mean? Is it typical that goals are not carried forward beyond the NEPA process? What would that look like? Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 8 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 2.2.1 12 Below comment in response to: The No-Build Alternative consists of existing conditions and any planned actions with committee funding in the Project Area (see Oregon Metro financially constrained project list. Are projects on the financially constrained RTP the same as those with "committed funding"? Where does tolling fall under this? Is "planned actions with committeed funding in the project area" the federal test for what to include in the No-Build, or is that just adopted practice? What about initiatives being developed and otherwise in process (ie, tolling/congestion pricing)? 9 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA Figure 2-6 17 Below comment in response to Figure 2-6: "I-5 Cross Section (N/NE Weidler overcrossing) Proposed Improvements" Is this showing the same location as that in Figure 2.2? It'd be good to do so to provide an apples-to-apples comparison. Are shoulders shown in proportionate width? Doesn't seem so as 12' shoulders would be approximately the width of a freeway travel lane. Revise cross-section to make more visually accurate and a direct comparison to previous image. Otherwise it s misleading. Very small note says it s not to scale. It s easy enough to create a scaled drawing. Why not do so? Also, to make the document/comparison user friendly, stack the images so they are on the same page. 10 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA Figure 2-7 19 Below in response to Figure 2-7: Building Parameters on the Cover Legend says that Up to 6-story lightweight buildings could be possible with strict constraints through design modifications to bridge type and roadway profiles. What are the "design modifications to ... roadway profiles" that will be required to provide up to 6-story buildings? Given that taller buildings are a strong desire of the community the project is attempting to serve, it would be good to understand the implication of design modifications to roadway profiles. 11 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 2.2.2.5 24 This entire section is unnecessarily specific, and does not necessarily reflect what the final configuration would be. Seems like all this is subject to ongoing design discussions. Does stating this in such a determinative manner preclude future design flexibility? 12 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 2.2.2.7 26 This section doesn t discuss improvements to Williams between Multnomah and Ramsay. Why is that omitted? 13 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.2.2.2 29 Below comment in response to: The Revised Build Alternative is a safety improvement project that does not substantially improve highway capacity To understand this we d need to know the peak hour(s) flow rate of both the No Build and the Revised Build. If the Revised Build irons out the kinks in the existing system, wouldn t that have the effect of increasing capacity. While the project may not recognize induced demand it is an important consideration for many road authorities. Understanding the potential for increased capacity seems a necessary step in being able to compare the two options. 14 Roger Geller PBOT 12.09.2022 SEA 3.3.2.2 34 Below comment in response to: The Revised Build Alternative would not substantially improve highway capacity and is not expected to induce growth or create other effects that would cause indirect impacts. What is the basis for this expectation? This needs to be analyzed from the perspective of potential induced demand. 15 Nick Falbo PBOT 12.12.2022 SEA Exec Summary ES-7 The executive summary lists as an anticipated benefit: "Improved traffic operations on the local street system and the addition of newpedestrian and bicycle enhancements would provide benefits to the local business environment." It is unclear if the revised build alternative would improve operations on the local system. The relocation of the SB offtamp to Ramsay Way seems to complicate the local street system with added freeway access circulation needs. 16 Nick Falbo PBOT 12.12.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 91 When describing the Revised Build Alternative, the SEA states "In addition, the bicycle and pedestrian improvements on NE Broadway and NE Weidler would provide connection with the Green Loop, outlined in the Adopted Central City 2035 Plan.", this route is offered up as an alternative to the Clackamas Crossin included in the 2019 Build Alterantive. The Clackamas Crossing proposal had a strong policy support as a key recommendation in the I-5 Broadway/Weidler Facility Plan adopted by resolution 36972 in 2012, and the Central City 2035 Plan report adopted by resolution 37361 in 2018. The removal of the Clackamas Crossing and recommendtion of a Broadway/Weidler alignment limits the project's ability to deliver on the goals and principles of the Green Loop as described in the Central City 2035 Plan. 17 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.12.2022 SEA 1.2 2 The sentence about pedestrian safety is misleading, "the Broadway/Weidler interchange and the surrounding area are characterized by frequent traffic congestion and accidents resulting in pedestrian and bicyclist injuries." While Broadway is on the High Crash Network for all modes, including pedestrians, the Broadway/Weidler interchange intersection is not a High Crash Intersection for pedestrians. There are no intersections in the project area that are considered high crash for pedestrians. (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/high-crash-network) 18 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.12.2022 SEA 2.2.2.5 25, 94 Closing crosswalks in a Pedestrian District isn't best practice and doesn't advance the goals of The TSP or PedPDX. Policy 9.19 or the TSP states "improve pedestrian safety, accessibility, and convenience for people of all ages and abilities". Closing crosswalks forces out of direction travel for pedestrians. 19 Nick Falbo PBOT 12.12.2022 SEA 3.8.2.2 56 This section states that the Revised Build Alternative "is compliant with policies identified in the Adopted Central City 2035 Plan (2018) specific to the Rose Quarter," This statement is questionable due to the significant departure from the Adopted Central City 2035 Plan as it relates to the Green Loop. The original 2019 Build Alternative was much more compliant with the policies of the Adopted Central City 2035 plan. 20 Nick Falbo PBOT 12.12.2022 AT Supplemental TR 4; 23 The description of the removal of the Clackamas Crossing from the Build Alternative and the relocation of the Green Loop alignment to Broadway/Weidler fails to document the decrease in comfort and function introduced by this change. 21 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.1.2 86 There are additional streets with crossing gaps (Flint, Wheeler, Multnomah), as well as a few deficicent crossings (see PedPDX maps for more info) 22 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 94 TSP Policies 9.6 and 9.19 guide us to prioritize walking over other modes and to improve pedestrian safety, accessibility and convenience. The Revised Build Alternative will reduce safety and convenience for pedestrians (page 94 of the SEA states that). 23 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 96 Where is the discussion on the removal of the Clackamas Crossing and the impacts of that decision on pedestrian connectivity? 24 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 96 Any benefit to connectivity from filling sidewalk gaps on Wheeler/Williams will be cancelled out by the freeway off ramp landing at that location. 25 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 96-97 The ramp terminal changes in the Revised Build Alternative clearly worsen the pedestrian experience on Williams near the Moda Center and at Weidler. I am particulary concerned with how the ramp and the intersection will work during large pedestrian events, such as before/after any event at the Moda Center. The SEA states "increased potential for pedestrian auto conflict due to placement of the I-5 SB off ramp". This is unacceptable and clearly defies TSP 9.6 and 9.19. 26 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 97 SEA says that conditions would be improved by reducing element, such as crossing 6 travel lanes... What is this referring to? 27 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 97 Reference PBOT Lighting Guidelines 28 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.13.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 100 Vision clearance should be reviewed for all intersections, not just uncontrolled. https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2022/lw_004-vision-cleareance-directive-2020-01-09.pdf 29 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR Figure 4, Page 14 Removing crosswalk at NE Broadway is in conflict with City priority for pedestrians as stated in our TSP and PedPDX. Removing the Clackamas Crossing has the same negative impact on pedestrians. 30 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR Page 19 Temporary construction impacts to AT are understandable. Clear, consistent, well-maintained wayfinding and communication through social media and to CBO's will be very important to ensure pedestrian and cyclist safety. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 31 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 4 The removal of the Clackamas Crossing of I5 creates considerable out of direction travel for people walking and biking. The report mentions that, but fails to explain the decrease in comfort and convience experienced by anyone not using a car. 32 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 18 The updated PedPDX prioritization didn't change the scoring of corridors or intersections. Instead is shows what has been completed since 2019 and what is left. That analysis is complete and I can provide it to the project team. 33 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 18 The entire last paragraph is inaccurate. PedPDX uses a combined score (safety, equity, demand) to prioritize 3 types of need: sidewalk gaps, crossing gaps, and crossing decificiences. I think the first part of the paragraph is describing the prioritized crossing gaps, which means the street doesn't meet our crossing spacing guidelines. It's unclear as written. The paragraph refers to Broadway and Weidler as a tier 2 project; unclear what this is referring to. Crossing deficienies are existing crossings that don't meet our standards. Those are tier 1-5 (not 3 as the document states). 34 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 24 The Revised Build cross section drawings show a 4 and 5 lane cross section on Broadway. The document repeatedly states that the pedestrian crossings of Broadway would be shortened in the new design. The existing cross section is 4 lanes. I fail to see how this design reduces pedestrian crossing widths and increases comfort. 35 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 24 Noting lack of street trees in the cross sections. 36 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 26 "The Revised Build Alternative would also make pedestrian and bicycle improvements along NE Broadway and NE Weidler Streets, which are both identified as high priority corridors (Tier 2) in the PedPDX plan." Again, I have no idea what this is referring to. This is inaccurate. Broadway Weidler are Major City Walkways and on the Ped Priority Network but I don't know what the Tier 2 is referring to. There are no sidewalk gaps. There are tier 3 crossing gaps, which are outisde of the API and aren't addressed in this project. 37 Gena Gastaldi PBOT 12.14.2022 AT Supplemental TR 46 " The conditions for walking in the area would benefit from improved sidewalk connections and pedestrian crossings, coupled with a reduction in intersection complexity. Increased walking activity would support local and regional pedestrian mode share goals. These improvements would occur along with slightly increased grades and the loss of two crosswalk street crossings andoutweigh the adverse effects of those changes" This paragraph fails to take 2 things into account: the loss of the Clackamas Crossing and the addtion of the I5 off ramp at the Moda Center. 38 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.15.2022 AT Supplemental TR 23 As noted at the start of the Moda section, the Clackamas Crossing was part of the 2035 plan. Its elimination and replacement with access via NE Broadway is not equivalent. It definitely doesn't support Portland's commitment to pedestrians being our top priority. Similarly, the off ramp at N. Williams also impacts pedestrians signficantly, necessitating permanent crosswalk closures and adding to pedestrian safety issues during Moda Center & Memorial Coliseum events where there is significant pedestrian movement to parking in the vicinity but away from the immediate area. 39 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.15.2022 AT Supplemental TR 24 Reinforcing Gena's comment above about not seeing the reduced crossing distances based on the cross sections showing 4 and 5 lanes of vehicle/transit traffic. 40 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 3 Regarding "Long Term and Operational Impacts": Physically separated and raised bicycle facilities are the city of Portland standard for any new construction. They would have been included in the "Build" scenario, too. Indeed, there are multiple notes and drawings from that earlier design demonstrating that raised facilities were to be provided. 41 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 3 Regarding "These impacts are both positive and negative but not substantial": The changes to N Williams resulting from it being the channel for southbound I5 off-ramp traffic, are substantial, as described in subsequent comments 42 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 4 Regarding "Reduction of intersection complexity": Not clear that intersection complexity will be reduced; the opposite seems more likely. Closing of pedestrian crosswalks will increase complexity by requiring multiple crossings where only one is needed today. Bicycle crossings also become more complex, especially for the major bikeway flow that is northbound on Williams. Exclusive signal phasing will be required, where none is needed today. This will result in increased delay for people biking. Storage for waiting and turning cyclists is ample today under existing conditions and would have been under the build scenario. Inclusion of freeway off-ramp traffic onto N Williams will challenge the ability to create sufficient storage for both the northbound flow of cyclists from further south on Williams as well as for the eastbound to northbound flow of cyclists approaching the Williams-Weidler intersection from the west. This lack of adequate storage in what will become a high traffic volume environment would seem to increase rather than reduce the complexity of operation at these intersections for vulnerable roadway users. In addition, it is not clear how people bicycling will be able to effectively move north. Both no build and build conditions had people bicycling operating in a low traffic volume environment. The Revised Build environment will have much higher traffic volumes in the N Williams corridor between Ramsay and Broadway. This will create challenging conditions for people bicycling to make the necessary maneuvers to avoid conflicting automotive traffic at Williams Weidler, to avoid the traffic accessing the northbound I5 on ramp on the left side of Williams north of Broadway and to then gain access to the existing left-running bicycle lane on Williams north of Broadway. Depending on the ultimate configuration, this also poses potential complexities for westbound cyclists on Broadway wishing to head to the left-running bicycle lane on N Williams. 43 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 4 Regarding " the Clackamas Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge is no longer a design feature.": The loss of the Clackamas Structure is a significant loss as it was featured in the Lloyd District's Central City 2035 policies as a key feature of The Green Loop as well as an extension of the proposed flexible street design along Clackamas Street. 44 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 4 Regarding "The Revised Build Alternative would I nclude upgraded physically separated and raised bike facilities ": As stated previously, Portland's design standard for new roadway construction is the provision of elevated, protected bicycle lanes. They would have been required in the Build scenario. There is no difference between the scenarios on this point. 45 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 12 Regarding " could provide an opportunity for new and modern bicycle facilities,": "New and modern bicycle facilities" would be a city requirement along roadways affected by the project. This makes it sound like it is only an option (use of the phrase "could provide an opportunity"). 46 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 12 Regarding "Construct wider sidewalks and bike lanes at sidewalk level ": As noted elsewhere, sidewalks and bike lanes of specific width based on roadway classification and expected use volumes are to be provided as standards as part of the construction. Such improvements would be standard under both the Build and Revised Build scenarios. This would include the appropriate intersection treatments. It is worth noting that a number of the protected bicycle signal phases are required in the Revised Build scenario in response to design changes. The Revised Build scenario is introducing higher volumes of automobile traffic onto bicycle corridors than would have occurred in the Build scenario. This increases the threat at multiple intersections and thus necessitates a higher level of treatment. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 47 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 13 Regarding: "Remove the two-way cycle track on N Williams Avenue .": These elements remain part of the design discussion. It doesn't seem appropriate to call them out here with this level of specificity. 48 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 14,21 Figure 4 Regarding map callout: "Upgrade to physically separated and raised bike facilities .": Again, this is not an upgrade as physically separated and raised bicycle lanes would have been a City of Portland requirement in the Build scenario, too. 49 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 15 The Oregon HDM was recently updated to incorporate into it the Blueprint for Urban Design, which specifically addresses designs for travel lanes, sidewalks and bike lanes. 50 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 15 Regarding "City of Portland Protected Bicycle Lane Planning and Design Guiidance': This is one Portland Guide, unchanged since the Build scenario, that identifies sidewalk-level protected bicycle lanes as the preferred design. 51 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 16 Regarding "The majority of the project area is within the Central City Pedestrian District": The majority of the project area is also classified as a Bicycle District in the city's Transportation System Plan. 52 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 16 Regarding "The mission of PedPDX .": This seems an odd document to highlight. City Policy is stronger and very clear. City Policy 9.6 states that the city of Portland is to "implement a prioritization of modes for people movement by making transportation system decisions according to the following ordered list: 1. Walking 2. Bicycling 3. Transit 4. Fleets of electric, fully automated, multiple passenger vehicles 5. Other shared vehicles 6. Low or no occupancy vehicles, fossil-fueled non-transit vehicles" The Comprehensive Plan also states: "Create conditions that make bicycling more attractive than driving for most trips of approximately three miles or less." (Policy 9.20); "Create more complete networks of pedestrian facilities, and improve the quality of the pedestrian environment." (Policy 9.18); "Encourage walking as the most attractive mode of transportation for most short trips, within neighborhoods and to centers, corridors, and major destinations, and as a means for accessing transit." (Policy 9.17); "Create a bicycle transportation system that is safe, comfortable, and accessible to people of all ages and abilities." (Policy 9.21); and, "Coordinate with public transit agencies to create conditions that make transit the preferred mode of travel for trips that are not made by walking or bicycling." (Policy 9.22). These seem equally if not more relevant than sole reference to PedPDX. 53 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 18 Regarding the "Affected Environment": LIkely this was covered in the 2019 TR, but it still seems an omission to not mention it here: This section neglects to discuss the affected environment in terms of bicycle transportation and transit. The Vancouver- Williams couplet is a major bicycle corridor between the Steel Bridge to points north of the API. It is one of the busiest corridors in the city for bicycle transportation. Both roadways are classified as Major City Bikeways. Broadway-Weidler are similarly classified as Major City Bikeways, though they carry lower bicycle volumes than Vancouver-Williams. The north south corridor also carries two bus lines, including one that is frequent service. 54 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 21 Regarding "The Revised Build Alternative would accommodate bicyclists .": Given ongoing design conversations this is too specific. These designs have not been agreed-upon. They are likely to be different from what is described here. 55 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 22 Regarding: "The I-5 southbound offramp would be relocated .": This relocation introduces freeway off-ramp traffic onto a major bicycle corridor that also serves two transit lines, one of which is a frequent service line. This adds complexity and risk to a corridor that under both the No Build and Build scenarios would have remained low volume. It is not clear there will be adequate facilities to prevent a degradation in service, safety and comfort to users of that corridor. The Williams-Weidler intersection is especially challenging as it receives significant flows of people biking both eastbound and northbound. The additional automobile pressure on the N Williams corridor between Ramsay and Broadway because of this off ramp will significantly complicate bicycle movements. It is likely to introduce delay for people biking, wakling and using transit (in contravention of Portland polices) and will likely create conditions that are not as comfortable as conditions under both the No Build and Build scenarios. 56 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 22 Regarding "NE Weidler Street" and bike signals: This signal is necessitated by the introduction of freeway off ramp traffic onto a major bicycle corridor. The conditions will neither be safer nor more comfortable than those that would exist under with the No Build or Build scenarios. This signal is also likely to introduce increased delay for people bicycling relative to the other scenarios. 57 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 22 The signal at N Hancock Street is similarly likely to introduce increased cyclist, transit and pedestrian delay. Hancock is not a City Bikeway and is unlikely to be used extensively as an east-west bicycle connection. 58 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 23 Regarding: "Compared to planned I-5 crossing of NE Clackamas Street, .": The Revised Build designs for Broadway and Weidler are identical to what the city would have required of this project under the Build scenario. Approximately 23' of pavement would be allocated in both scenarios, which is consistent with Portland's preferred form for a pedestrian space and bicycle space. This is identified in the Portland Protected Bicycle Lane Planning and Design Guide. As a standard desired design for sidewalks with adjacent sidewalk-level bicycle lanes, this design still falls short of the Green Loop Design Principles identified in the Central City 2035 Plan (Volume 5B). This is a significant impact to the plans for the Green Loop through the Lloyd District. 59 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 24 Figure 6 These designs shown for the Build alternatives would not have been acceptable to the City of Portland based on City standards for sidewalk level bicycle lanes. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 60 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 31-36 Table 2 The City of Portland does not use and does not agree with this type of Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress analysis for specific intersection and corridor segments. This type of analysis has not been significantly vetted so as to provide meaningful information at the level of detail suggested here. The tool, when originally developed, was intended to provide a very high level analysis for an entire network of bikeways and not a detailed assessment of ground level facilities. ODOT's Analysis Procedure Manual (Version 2, 2018) states that "Use of LTS for project development and development review should be limited to a screening-based analysis to quickly identify existing and future needs". It states this indicating that LTS is an appropriate tool for regional transportation plans and other transportation system plans. It is not recommended for "Facility Plan/Interchange Area Management Plans" for project development or development review. This is too blunt of a tool to provide meaningful information for these intersections. Indeed, it serves to distract from the level of detailed analysis and consideration required for those intersections and segments that will experience the most change in automobile volumes. Indeed, the LTS analysis is based principally on width of bicycle facility and prevailing or posted speed. Most modern guidance, including ODOT's is based on traffic volumes as well as speed. As LTS analysis was developed well in advance of popular adoption of protected lanes, it focuses only on width of bike lanes and does not take protected facilities into consideration. In addition, ODOT's guidance in their Analysis Procedures Manual differs significantly from the city's. The ODOT manual suggests that "Bicycle facilities with greater separation from vehicles rate higher than shared or lesser separated facilities. Wider bicycle facilities will rate better than narrower or non-existent ones. Ideally, arterials (7000+ AADT) have separated facilities (i.e. buffered bike lanes, cycle tracks, bike paths); collectors (1500-7000 AADT) have bike lanes...." PBOT's guidance is clear that protected lanes are required at volumes greater than 6000 ADT and at 95th% speeds greater than 26 mph. However, it also calls for protected lanes as appropriate at volumes as low as 1500 ADT, depending on conditions. By city policy and design guidance protected lanes are always the preferred treatment whenever separation is called for. This difference in approach further calls in to question the appropriateness of using an ODOT LTS tool that was created with significantly different base assumptions in suitability of conditions for bicycle transportation. As noted by ODOT, the LTS methodology they use is a modified version of what had initially been reported in 2012 in a Minetta Transportation Institute report. Knowledge and research have both advanced considerably since then, as has an understanding of what conditions are considered "comfortable" by an average person who may be interested in bicycling. ODOT does acknowledge that the "Bicycle Level of Stress does not include other factors that may be important to bicycle riders that should be taken into consideration when applying this methodology. These can include presence of steep or long climbs, poor pavement condition, heavy vehicle use,..." Heavy vehicle use is of utmost importance in this instance. 61 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 36 Regarding "12 Williams .13 Williams .": That the ODOT LTS analysis concludes that the Revised Build will create improved conditions relative to No Build or the Build scenarios on the segments of N Williams between Weidler and Broadway and between Broadway to Hancock highlights the insufficiency of this tool to provide meaningful information. Existing conditions on N Williams between Weidler and Broadway are favorable for bicycling. The northbound movement from Williams between Weidler and Broadway currently carries mostly bicycle traffic. Thus, when northbound Williams traffic at Weidler receives a green indication, it is principally bicycle traffic only. This low ADT environment works well for people bicycling as it allows them to set up in the middle of the roadway in a manner that aligns comfortably with the left side bikeway on Williams north of Broadway. The Revised Build scenario will include much higher volumes of automobile traffic. While good quality facilities can overcome the issues posed by higher auto volumes, the environment will be inherently more stressful than either the No Build or Build conditions. In addition, the configuration is likely to introduce delay to the movement of people bicycling. It is also unclear whether the design will accommodate the volumes of people currently bicycling through this area. On Williams between Broadway to Hancock people bicycling may similarly be delayed as under some design scenarios they will be required to shift from one side of the roadway to the other at a signalized intersection. Neither the No Build nor the Build conditions requires that shift and resulting delay. These are examples of how the blunt tool that is the LTS analysis fails to identify the true nature of differences between the scenarios. 62 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 38-41 Table 5 Regarding Broadway Bridge t/from Williams/Vancouver...and Tillamook...": Not included as a criterion here is whether the high volumes of people bicycling east to north can be accommodated at the Williams-Weidler intersection. Porland policies are explicit about the ability of Major City Bikeways to accommodate large volumes of bicyclists. Based on ongoing conversations, it is not clear that current and future volumes can be easily accommodated. 63 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 38-41 Table 5 Regarding "All four study intersections" (Broadway Bridge to/from Lloyd eastbound): With signalization of nbnd off ramp right turn onto Weidler I would say that intersection improves. 64 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 38-41 Table 5 Regarding Broadway Bridge to/from Lloyd (Eastbound): Delay for eastbound cyclists is likely to increase due to additional signal phases at Williams-Weidler intersection. 65 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 38-41 Table 5 Regarding "No change from the primary No-Build Route (Broadway Bridge to/from Broadway/Weidler .east of I-5): More traffic pressure on Williams-Weidler intersection is likely to increase delay for people bicycling eastbound due to more signal phasing and timing for northbound movements. 66 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 38-41 Table 5 Regarding "All four study intersections " (Steel Bridge to/from Willams/Vancouver corridor ": and regarding "Both study intersections " (Steel Bridge to/from Broadway/Weidler corridor east of I-5 )"" Blocks between Ramsay and Broadway will see increased automobile traffic due to relocation of southbound off ramp. Increased traffic will have many potential effects, including a more physically intimidating environment, increased delay due to signal timing and possible transitioning from one side of the roadway to another, increased exposure to high volumes of freeway off-ramp traffic, and insufficient storage at the Williams-Weidler intersection. 67 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 42 Regarding "Eastbound cyclists would have increased separation ": Conditions for the Build alternative would be the same as for the Revised Build as city standards for bikeways would have required sidewalk level facilities. 68 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 43 Regarding Route 2 and 3 Cyclists: Eastbound cyclists will likely experience increased delay due to signal timing at the Weidler-Williams intersection. The intersection with the northbound off ramp is likely to be signaled and operated with "No Turn on Red", which is better than the No Build condition where a right-turn slip lane would be maintained. 69 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 44 Regarding Route 4 Cyclists " but more separation .": The only reason more separation is needed in this segment is because of the freeway off ramp traffic. Existing facilities are sufficient for current levels of traffic as well as for levels of traffic that would occur in both the No Build and Build scenarios. While the quality of the facilities will improve, the conditions are still likely to degrade because of the presence of freeway off ramp traffic, increased delay at Weidler-Williams, the potential need to switch sides of the roadway multiple times and inability to handle large volumes of people bicycling. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 70 Roger Geller PBOT 12.16.2022 AT Supplemental TR 46 Regarding Conclusion Direct Impacts: While the quality of facilities may improve, that improvement is necessitated by the increased demands placed on the system due to freeway off ramp traffic. Considering the stress of proximity to traffic, increased delay and undersized facilities it is difficult to see how conditions for bicycling in the Revised Build scenario will be better than those in either the No Build or Build scenarios. Based on the above, they are likely to be worse. Not accommodating large volumes of people bicycling and introducing delay violate several city policies. 71 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 AT Supplemental TR 36 As this summary identifies, and as represented in more detail in tables on previous pages, the LTS for pedestrians on N.Williams between Ramsey Way and Wiedler is twice as back as the No Build option. Given how busy this location is before and after events at the Coliseum and the Moda Center, this is a concerning statistic that doesn't align with City of Portland guidance and priorities for pedestrians. 72 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 AT Supplemental TR 44 Pedestrian conditions at the N. Williams/NE Weidler intersection are acknowledged as being difficult under the RBA. This doesn't support city policies that prioritize pedestrians. 73 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 AT Supplemental TR 46 "slightly increased grades" can be a significant impact to mobility device users. 74 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 AT Supplemental TR 47 The cummulative impact of eliminating the Clackamas Crossing and adding the I-5 SB off-ramp at Williams are significantly negative to pedestrians, including people with disabilities, and are in conflict with city policiies that prioritize pedestrian movement and safety. 75 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 SEA 2.2.2.7 26 Closing crosswalks for traffic operations is in conflict with city policies. 76 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 SEA 2.2.2.7 26 In the Other Local Street, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Improvements section, 800 feet of sidewalk infill is mentioned and tied to ADA-accessible crossings. I am unclear where the infill locations are and complete sidewalk networks do benefit people with disabilities but unless the locations are at corners or there will be mid-block crossings, saying there are ADA-accessible crossing benefits seems inaccurate. 77 Jason Grassman PBOT 12.19.2022 AT SUPPLEMENTAL TR Appendix A I don't know if the TR needs to changed but the I-5 SB off ramp connection needs to be revsited, the right turn radius cannot support two design vehicles. Perhaps the left off-ramp lane can go westbound on Ramsay. 78 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 94 This section acknowledges that the relocated off ramp and crosswalk closures will reduce pedestrian safety. This is in conflict with city guidance and plans. 79 Lisa Strader PBOT 12.19.2022 SEA 3.13.2.2 96 This section again acknowledges pedestrian safety issues with the off ramp and crosswalk closures including recognition for more vehicle/pedestrian conflicts. City staff agree. Portland guidance prioritizes pedestrian safety over vehicle traffic efficiency. 80 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 Appendix B. RFFA, Standard Approach to RFFA 1 to 2 While all these options are possible none are certain. The Moda Center, Dr. Jack s, the Rebound Clinic and Blazers Offices are privately owned and the owners of the buildings will determine if there will be work undertaken. The City-owned garages are not currently budgeted or planned to be replaced. Major reconfiguration work on the City-owned Veterans Memorial Coliseum and surrounding service areas that might be suggested as part of this project is also not currently budgeted or planned for. If the parking structures are eventually demolished or reconfigured, the parking they provide will need to be replaced within easy walking distance of the two arenas. It is not clear how such a project would be funded or where the parking would be located. 81 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 pp Summary of Avoidance, Minimization and Mitigation Measures D9-D10 It will be absolutely critical that the regular schedule of events at the Veterans and Moda are able to happen as regularly scheduled. Any construction traffic detours or mitigations must continue to provide reasonable access by all transportation modes for patrons at events. If construction activities prevent events from being possible, there will need to be compensation for significant lost revenues to the City and to the Arena Operators. 82 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 Appendix E. Figure Descriptions E-3 The previous design had neither ramp at N Ramsay Way which allowed for safer bicycle and pedestrian passageways. The current proposal creates undue danger for bicycle and pedestrian users at the intersection of Ramsay/Wheeler/Williams. It is not only less safe than the previous designs but it is potentially less safe than a no-build alternative. Vehicles trying to access the Garden Garage will now have to navigate through 4-5 congested intersections with heavy bicycle and pedestrian traffic which creates unnecessary congestion, degrades the event patron experience and creates numerous conflict points with heavy pedestrian and bicycle traffic. 83 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, 3.8.1 Land Use- Existing Conditions 49 The Rose Quarter campus facilities, which include the privately-owned Moda Center and City-owned Veterans Memorial Coliseum are vital cultural and economic drivers for the greater Portland region. No other event complex in the State can host the same quantity and types of events. Portland s Comprehensive Plan Policy 6.33 Central City, Transportation, Public Facilities and Economic Development directly states the City s support in the ongoing viability and success of the regional entertainment and event complex. It is not clear that the revised SEA provides a viable future for the district with the placement of both onramps at Ramsay/Wheeler/Williams and the associated traffic, access, and safety impacts that result. Similarly, Portland s Central City 2035 Policy Goal 1.A upholds Portland s support for the Central City being the preeminent regional center for commerce and employment, arts and culture, entertainment, tourism, education and government and the Rose Quarter s proximity to the Lloyd district further supports the important roles the facilities play in the region. The revised design threatens the viability of the Rose Quarter event complex and conflicts with the City s policies. 84 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, 3.13.1.1 Transportation, Transit 85 Functional transit access to events in the district is critical and there are questions about whether the revised project may reduce transit performance, particularly on NE Wheeler Ave and N Williams Ave, particularly during event situations. 85 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, 3.13.2.2 AT, Short-term Construction Impacts 95 There are concerns about the safety for pedestrians and bicycles in the (N Ramsay Way/NE Wheeler Ave intersection-area). The proposed project creates significant new bicycle and pedestrian concerns that are likely worse than existing conditions, particularly during event situations. 86 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, Long-term Operational Impacts, Increased Non-Motorized Route Options 96 The project adds a sidewalk on the east side of Wheeler which is positive, but given the fact that there are no buildings on the east side of the street for pedestrians to access, it is not particularly useful compared to the negative impacts of concentrating all the highway traffic at the N Ramsay Way/NE Wheeler Ave intersection. On balance, the pedestrian situation in this area appears to be preferable in existing conditions vs the proposal, particularly during event situations. 87 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, 3.13.2.4, Traffic Operations, Avoidance, Minimization and Mitigation Measures 105-106 The proposed reconfiguration of the ramps and the concentration of traffic and the required confusing and circuitous paths that vehicle traffic would have to take to access Rose Quarter garages would create safety concerns for all modes of transportation and would raise questions about the economic performance of the district at large. The revised project alternative appears to be worse for Rose Quarter event access and safety than the no-build alternative. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 88 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 AT Supplemental TR, 6.2.1 Direct Impacts, Short term Construction Impacts 20-21 Event-level crowds considering simultaneous events in both arenas (25,000+) must be accounted for and handled appropriately. It will be absolutely critical that the regular schedule of events at the Veterans and Moda are able to happen regularly scheduled and any construction traffic detours or mitigations will result in a practicable set up to allow for these events. If construction activities prevent events from being possible, there will need to be compensation for lost revenues to the City and to the Arena Operators. Bicycle and pedestrian safety in accesssing the arenas is critical. 89 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 AT Supplemental TR, 6.2.1 Direct Impacts, Long Term and Operational Impacts 23 The additional sidewalks on the east side of NE Wheeler Ave are helpful but compared to the loss of the Clackamas pedestrian bridge crossing are far worse than the previous proposal and potentially worse than the no-build alternative because of the potential safety impacts of having both ramps in the proposed locations. This is particularly impactful in even situations with very heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic at the same times. 90 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 Archaeological Resources Supplemental TR; Climate Change Supplemental TR (7); Historic 6 This is privately owned property by Vulcan that functions as part of the event district; it is needed to support large events (oversized vehicles, trucks, buses and staff parking). Those uses would need to be accommodated elsewhere if this project takes away regular, frequent full-capacity use of this lot. Not having access to this lot would create challenges to operating Moda Center and the Veterans Memorial Coliseum while they host multi-million dollar generating events. 91 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 Historic Resources Supplemental TR, 5.2 NRHP-Listed Properties 21 The Veterans Memorial Coliseum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in September 2009. The protected, historic arena depends on safe and efficient access via all transportation modes to remain a viable and sustainable event venue. While the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was not included in the project impact area, it does sit in the immediate vicinity and its long-term preservation depends on continued safe and functional access for all modes for events. Like the Moda Center, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum depends on safe and efficient regional access to remain a viable venue, efficient, safe and easy to understand access by all modes is critical. 92 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 Transportation Safety Supplemental TR, 6.4 Conclusion 33 Design options should be expanded to include options that do not overload the intersection (NE Wheeler Ave/N Williams Ave/N Ramsay Way) with the burden of both I-5 southbound on and off ramps. The economic tradeoffs of threatening the functionality of the event district (Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum) are not worth the relatively minor development impact of placing one of the ramps further north. 93 Lauren Broudy, OMF CAO Spectator Venues Program OMF 12/27/2022 SEA, 3.11.1.3 Local and Regional Economy; SEA, 3.13.2.4 Traffic Operations, Revised Build 72 Based on an economic impact analysis of Fiscal Year 2018-19 (the last full pre-covid year), the direct spending associated operations of the Rose Quarter Campus was estimated to be $283.9 million in the City and total output (i.e., direct, indirect and induced spending) was estimated to be $539.8 million. It was estimated that approximately $1.90 was generated for every $1 of direct spending. These figures also include the Rose Quarter Campus providing nearly 7,000 full and part time jobs. The potential negative impacts of a poorly functioning Rose Quarter Campus due to newly created congestion, mobility and accessibility issues would be consequential. 94 Charles Radosta, PBOT SSL PBOT 12/27/2022 Safety Supplemental TR 28 Do we have any off-ramps along the interstate system in Oregon that match the design elements of the proposed SB off-ramp-namely multilane, with a 180+ degree u-turn that has a curve radius less than 100 feet, and with a traffic signal in the middle of the turn? As proposed the issues with this design include a lack of signal visibility, truck off-tracking within the u-turn, and keeping higher speed drivers from failing to navigate the turn and driving over the pedestrian waiting area between the ramps. I have not received adequate documentation to confirm whether or not this is a fatal flaw in the design. 95 Jamie Jeffrey, PBOT Traffic PBOT 12/27/2022 SEA and Traffic Supplental TR SEA 3.8.2 p52 and 3.13.1.4 p87 & Traffic TR 6.1.1. p19 There is no info about the Central City Multi-Modal Mixed Use Area mobility status for ramp terminal intersections. ODOT mobility standards do not apply, although queuing and safety still apply. Sections 3.8.2 Environmental Consequences and 3.13.1.4 Traffic Operations in the SEA would be appropriate places to acknowledge. Statements that interchange intersections would need to meet ODOT mobility standards (v/c of less than 0.85) would not be consistent with the adopted MMA. 6.1.1 Direct Impacts in the Traffic Supplemental TR would be the appropriate place to acknowledge the MMA. Recommend using previously suggested language from ODOT-As part of the adoption of the Central City 2035 Plan, the Central City which includes the intersections in this table has been designated as a Multimodal Mixed-Use Area (MMA). This designation provides flexibility for determining significant effects of land use actions, by lifting mobility standards requirements at ODOT facilities. Transportation standards such safety and multimodal access still apply. 96 Jamie Jeffrey, PBOT Traffic PBOT 12/27/2022 Traffic Supplemental TR 28 6.2.2.2 Future Local Street Traffic Operations also has language about mobility standards and should acknowledge the MMA. Recommend using previously suggested language from ODOT in the Synchro Analysis Results section of 6.2.2.2- No mitigation is proposed as the design is prioritizing pedestrian access and safety. By providing a protected pedestrian phase, westbound and northbound approaches would have reduced green times and delays are anticipated. City has also indicated that this section falls within the MMA designation and therefore pedestrian safety and access would be prioritized over mobility standards. 97 Jamie Jeffrey, PBOT Traffic PBOT 12/27/2022 Traffic Supplemental TR Sect 6.2.2.3 p40 Bicycle travel times for NB and SB, as well as EB to NB should be included. Although it wasn't as relevant in 2019, Hybrid 3 I-5 SB offramp configuration directly impacts the N and S movements for bicycles. It may inform different design options (i.e. Williams crossover at Hancock vs Russell, etc) to strive for best/balanced option to provide least impact to bike travel compared to options that delay bike travel more. 98 Jamie Jeffrey, PBOT Traffic PBOT 12/27/2022 Safety Supplemental TR General Moda Center events should be discussed, as they are frequent enough that they would be considered common. Relevant discussion should be primarily related to ped/vehicle operations with event ingress/egress. Suggest using similar context as the traffic tech report looking toward event management. 99 Morgan Steele PBOT 12/27/2022 Tech Reports Project Area Figure The Revised Build Alternative Additional Area C appears to be within River overlay zones. Development within River overlay zones is subject to Zoning Code Section 33.475. Proposed development in this area should be included in the River Review application matierals. 100 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report Cover The date of the report on the cover is stated as August 2022. However, shouldn't it be updated to a November date? We last reviewed and commented on the 20220919 Draft-Second Review version of the report dated September 1, 2022. It is confusing to have the version dates go back in time. 101 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report Page 1 Exec Summary. 2nd paragraph on transit ridership: Consider adding a sentence about ridership recovery between these others. Such as: " from 2017 to 2020. As of November 2022, transit ridership on the TriMet system was 54 percent of what it was pre- pandemic in February 2020. TriMet leadership " https://trimet.org/about/performance.htm#ridership 102 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report Page 6 Section 2.2 Project Area and Fig 2. Project Area labeled E: The text needs its own bullet point. It got combined with bullet D. Given current discussions about design options that may include the Clackamas Crossing, it seems prudent to not exclude area E from the Project Area at this time. I recommend keeping it. This comment likely applies to multiple tech reports. Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 103 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 10 Section 2.3 Highway Cover Changes: Include "transit stops and sidewalk corridors" among the other items in the sentence: " Upon Project completion, the added surface space created by the highway cover over I-5 could provide an opportunity for new and modern bicycle facilities, improved transit stops and sidewalk corridors, making the area more connected, walkable and bike friendly." 104 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 10-11 Section 2.5 RELATED LOCAL SYSTEM MULTIMODAL IMPROVEMENTS CHANGE text and Figure 4: Given current discussions about design options that may include the Clackamas Crossing, it seems prudent to revise this section. This comment likely applies to multiple tech reports. 105 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 13-14 Section 3.0 Regulatory Framework: Add the following project to the 2022 supplement. RTP project ID 11833 Inner North Portland Enhanced Transit Corridors. It is on the Constrained list. It is routed on N Vancouver and N Williams btwn Central City and Lombard. Also in the Portland TSP. Meant to improve bus speed and reliability for bus line 4 and 44. 106 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 13-14 Section 3.0 Regulatory Framework: Add reference to the following City of Portland/PBOT plans adopted by City Council: Enhanced Transit Corridors Plan and (June 2018) and Rose Lane Project (January 2020). visit: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/planning/enhanced-transit-corridors-plan and https://www.portland.gov/transportation/rose-lanes 107 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 13-14 Section 3.0 Regulatory Framework: Consider adding the 2019 Portland Streetcar Design Development Standards. 108 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 13-14 Section 3.0 Regulatory Framework: Consider adding reference to the TriMet Forward Together bus service concept completed in December 2022. It will guide their annual service improvements and route changes over the next 3 6 years. https://trimet.org/forward/ 109 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 19 Section 5.2 TRANSIT ROUTES: Add the Swan Island Shuttle provided by Multnomah County. Following TriMet s line 85 route, the shuttle runs from 6:30pm to midnight, Monday-Friday, from the Rose Quarter Transit Center out to the N Basin St./N Fathom St. intersection, with three stops in between. https://www.multco.us/transit/swan-island-shuttle Questions? Please contact Eve Nilenders at eve.nilenders@multco.us, 503.349.5014. 110 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report page 19 Section 5.3 TRANSIT STOPS AND RIDER ACTIVITY: Consider adding a sentence with updated TriMet ridership data from Fall 2022. Ridership has recovered some since 2020. https://trimet.org/about/performance.htm 111 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Transit Supplemental Tech Report Page 26 Section 6.2.4 Cumulative Effects: I noted the ODOT response to my September comments with concerns about this bullet statement. I concern still stands. I recommend some edit, even if vey general, such as: "The revised Build Alternative may limit Enhanced Transit Corridor Plans within the API; however, potential implementation of transit priority treatments by the I5RQ Project within the API could potentially result in transit speed and reliability improvements on transit operations and mitigate for increased transit travel time impacts summarized above." 112 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Active Transportation Supplemental Tech Report page 15-16 Section 3.0 Regulatory Framework: I did not see reference to the Lloyd District Special Street Design Standards. I believe they are applicable within the I5RQ Project Area. I recall they were developed and adopted in the 1990s. They include special sidewalk design standards. I am not able to locate them online. PBOT Development Review staff may be better equipped to share them. 113 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 2.2.2.4 23 Last paragraph Prelim Comment: We are not sure yet that this will be the preferred operation at this intersection. Will have to introduce the various options at this time until we've settled on a preferred design. ODOT Reponse: The project team looks forward to working with the City to review options. Second Draft and Final Comment: No change to document. Not sure if comment needs to be carried forward. 114 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 2.2.2.5 24 All Prelim Comment: We are not sure yet that this will be the preferred operation at this intersection. Will have to introduce the various options at this time until we've settled on a preferred design. ODOT Response: This is the preferred option at this time. If, through conversations with the City, there are additional design refinements, they will be incorporated into future design. Second Draft and Final Comment: No change to document. Not sure if comment needs to be carried forward. 115 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.1.4 87-88 Prelim Comment: Include travel time data for local street routes. Response: Revised to explain "Local streets were evaluated based on overall intersection delays and intersection LOS." ODOT Response: Revised to explain "Local streets were evaluated based on overall intersection delays and intersection LOS. " Second Draft and Final Comment: We re going to need travel time data to determine impacts to all modes, but maybe this doesn t need to be in the NEPA? 116 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.1 90 3rd Paragraph Prelim Comment: PBOT has to review and agree that a 3rd through lane is the best approach. Describe a an option until we've settled upon a preferred design. ODOT Response: ODOT looks forward to working with the city to optimize the network during final design and acknowledges the need for city permits and concurrence on several design elements. The SEA describes the preferred design at this time. Second Draft and Final Comment: Language needs to be included acknowledging the impacts to streetcar with 2 through or 3 through lanes since both options are still on the table. Identifying reduced impacts to streetcar due to a third lane that may not be implemented would be misrepresenting the potential impacts. 117 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.2 91 Last paragraph Prelim Comment: I think that many of the intersection crossings are actually getting longer. ODOT Response: Edit made, as intersections are getting shorter, longer or staying the same. Second Draft and Final Comment: Language still only identifies shorter crossings. Misrepresenting ped impacts. 118 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.2 96 Second bullet Prelim Comment: Protection will likely need to continue to Hancock with new signal at Hancock providing transition from right-running to left-running. ODOT Response: City direction is needed to understand desired transition of NB bike facility on Williams. Will be refined with City input in the subsequent design phase. Second Draft and Final Comment: Probably need to include this and expand the API in the NEPA. Location of bike facility on Williams and transition still TBD, but make extend as far north as Russell and include a new signal at that intersection. 119 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.2 Prelim Comment: List out specific locations where crossings and sidewalk added and potential crossing removals. ODOT Response: The Traffic supplemental technical report provides a list bike and ped crossing assumption at key intersections in section 6.2.2. and includes assumptions on pedestrian crossings removals. Final Comment: Still don't see information related to filling sidewalk gaps. 120 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13 Prelim Comment: Include description of long-term impacts due to columns and other improvements on Russell, Multnomah, Holladay, Lloyd and any others missed. Include potential mitigation measures to address these impacts. ODOT Response: There are no long-term impacts identified on these local streets. Any reconstruction of sidewalk or ADA facilities along these facilities will be detailed during the design phase in coordination with city of Portland. Second Draft and Final Comment: Isn t the NEPA intended to address these impacts? The columns will impact ped and bike facilities. Mitigation measures that are being considered to mitigate for these impacts should be identified. 121 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA, App. D and Access TR Prelim Comment: Include that an access management plan will need to be developed during project design. ODOT Response: We recognize the need for the plan and will work with the city during final design to develop the plan. Second Draft and Final Comment: Identify this need in the NEPA and funding to ensure that it happens. This plan will need to identify where accesses will be allowed and prohibited on new and redeveloped parcels inlcude those on the lid. 122 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.2, Active TR 6.2.2 Prelim Comment: Should evaluate the segment, approach,and crossing for LTS per the Analysis Procedures Manual. This will be much more informative of overall conditions for cyclists in each scenario. LTS1 for all intersections for cyclists is very misleading. These are some of the highest level of stress intersections in the city. ODOT Response: Additional LTS analysis was conducted in response to this comment. Results will be provided in the Active Transportation supplemental tech report. Second Draft and Final Comment: Still missing assessment fo the approaches. It does not appear that the Supp EA was updated to reflect the additional analysis. 123 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supp EA 3.13.2.2, Active TR 6.2.2 Prelim Comment: Should evaluate both the segments and crossings for LTS per the Analysis Procedures Manual. This will be much more informative of overall conditions for pedestrians in each scenario. ODOT Response: Additional LTS analysis was conducted in response to this comment. Results will be provided in the Active Transportation supplemental tech report. Second Draft and Final Comment: It does not appear that the Supp EA was updated to reflect the additional analysis. 124 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Global Prelim Comment: Should also provide a crosswalk on the south leg at Ramsay/Williams. Closure can be proposed as mitigation measure for motorized traffic, to be explored during design. I know this crosswalk is currently closed, but we should open it if possible for access to the new east side sidewalk south to Multnomah. ODOT Response: The supplemental traffic analysis design assumption is that this crosswalk is maintained closed in the revised build alternative. As we continue working with the COP in design refinements, we will evaluate opening this crosswalk during design phase. Second Draft and Final Comment: Then at least include language that it will be evaluated for inclusion in the design Comment No. Reviewer Name Bureau Date Document Page # Line# Comment Agency Reviewer K19071 I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Administrative Public SEA City of Portland Review Log Comments Due: 12/27/2022 125 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Active Transportation Supp TR 22 4th Paragraph Prelim Comment: What about SB Vancouver at Broadway? I don't see any reason not to allow the right turn with the ramp gone. Will want a right turn lane with protected rights and bike signal. ODOT Response: This will need further discussion during Final Design if it is to be considered. The right lane on Vancouver, north of Broadway, is a SB Bus Only Lane which will conflict with a right turn movement. Second Draft and Final Comment: Identify in the Supp EA that this will be evaluated and potentially included during design. 126 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 General This assessment describes impacts of a project with design elements that won't be implemented or will be changed. And we have deviated further from this design since the preliminary draft SEA review. 127 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Access Memo Figure 2 I think the intersection of Russell/Kerby is also being modifed with EWPA. Hancock/Williams, Hancock/Vancouver, Hancock/Flint, Broadway/Vancouver, and Broadway/Flint/Wheeer were all being modified in the previous design, but are identified as new intersections to be modified in this figure. Dixon/Wheeler should be identified as an intersection no longer to be modified. 128 Jennie Tower PBOT 12/27/2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment Report page 86 Section 3.13.1.1 Transit: Minor correction to this sentence: FTA Capital Investment Grants program Small Starts and New Starts funds were used to construct existing streetcar and MAX light rail facilities; therefore, there is an obligation to continue to provide service 129 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/28/2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment Report page 89 Section 3.13.2.1 Transit, Short-term Construction Impacts: Add potential temporary short-term impacts during construction to the Swan Island Shuttle provided by Multnomah County. Following TriMet s line 85 route, the shuttle runs from 6:30pm to midnight, Monday-Friday, from the Rose Quarter Transit Center out to the N Basin St./N Fathom St. intersection, with three stops in between. https://www.multco.us/transit/swan-island-shuttle Questions? Please contact Eve Nilenders at eve.nilenders@multco.us, 503.349.5014. 130 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/28/2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment Report page 90 Section 3.13.2.1 Transit, Short-term Construction Impacts: Add sentence or more about the potential loss of transit ridership during construction due to the inconvenience, delays and longer transit travel times due to transit detours. There is already similar language on page 120 that could be repeated here, "Long construction periods (coupled with circuitous bus detour routes) could temporarily suppress transit ridership due to passenger inconvenience" 131 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/28/2022 SEA Appendix D page 90 page D-7 Section 3.13.2.1 Section- Transportati on Section 3.13.2.1 Transit, Avoidance, Minimization, and Mitigation Measures: Add sentence or paragraph about additional measures to help mitigate for temporarily suppressed transit ridership. This could include, "ODOT would coordinate with City of Portland, TriMet and PSI in the final design and construction phases to minimize and mitigate for temporarily suppressed transit ridership and help restore and grow transit ridership in the API. This would include the Project funding educational, encouragement and incentive campaigns to promote transit ridership during construction and following project completion to help with activation of the new walking, biking and transit infrastructure and restored regular transit routes and service. These campaigns may also be coordinated with other transportation management and operation strategies (TMOS) for the Project." 132 April Bertelsen, PBOT Complete Streets PBOT 12/28/2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment Report page 120 Section 3.16.12, Transit: Add revision to this sentence: " opportunities could arise to implement Enhanced Transit Corridors Plan recommendations or other transit speed and reliability improvements on API corridors in tandem with the Revised Build Alternative. 133 T Doss, BPS Lead BPS 1/3/2023 General There is a need to ensure the highway cover is designed and constructed to maxmize development potential and to be able to achieve the design, development, land use, and programming vision articulated in the Independent Cover Assessment. This means that expansion joints need to be aligned with the street grid to create rectilinear development pads, that flat surfaces be created to the maximum extent feasible for ease of development and to create programable outdoor spaces, and that the edges of the cover create a smooth edge to adjacent lands to allow smooth transitions between development located on the cover and those located on land immediately adjacent to the cover. 134 T Doss, BPS Lead BPS 1/3/2023 General The removal of the Clackamas Overcrossing for the Green Loop connection between the Lloyd District and Rose Quarter creates a significant barrier to establishing a safe and attractive pedestrian and low speed bike connection over I-5. No existing alternative routes provide such a direct connection, nor one that avoids major transit lines, freeway related traffic, or significant grade changes. Further, the relocation of the Green Loop to the Broadway/Wiedler couplet was done without coordination with the City of Portland, who will own and maintain that infrastructure. Lastly, the Green Loop is designed to act as a grade separated facility that avoids high traffic volumes and high speeds, such to be attractive to safety concerned users. The relocation of the Greenloop passing two off-ramps and on-ramp is in direct conflict with the basis for the Green Loop concept. 135 Sharon Daleo PBOT 1/3/2023 General The RMPP Sensitivity Analysis provided in Appendix D of the Traffic Analysis Supplemental Tech Report reflects that RMPP has the potential to lower the travel demand on I5RQ below what the project is currently using to make design decisions on the local street network. The traffic volumes assumed and being used to advance the design should be further evaluated and consideration given to developing a design that includes RMPP in the opening day configuration. local street network. The traffic volumes assumed and being used to advance the design should be further evaluated and consideration given to developing a design that includes RMPP in the opening day configuration. |
| 7651 | Brian | Davis | Megan and Team, I am writing to enter the attached comments into the record for the I5 project. Shout with any questions. Best, Brian --Brian Davis, AICP (he/him) January 4, 2022 Megan Channell, AICP Rose Quarter Project Director Oregon Department of Transportation 123 NW Flanders Street Portland, OR 97209 Re: Comments on I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental Assessment Dear Megan, I am writing to respectfully submit the following comments regarding the revised Supplemental Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposed Rose Quarter project. My comments pertain primarily to the case for additional lanes within the project area, which I believe ODOT has failed to make; I remain supportive of other elements of the project. My arguments to this effect are detailed within this letter. Introduction & history In late 2016 I was approached by members of No More Freeways Portland and asked to review traffic-related elements of the initial Environmental Assessment for the 1-5 Rose Quarter project. Possessing some level of expertise in this regard that was not otherwise present in the group, I agreed, hoping that I could provide some useful insights and explanations around the transportation analyses within the EA. While I will admit to a predisposition against the freeway widening elements of the plan, I am first and foremost a believer in following the data and the science, so I was certainly curious and open to arguments establishing the necessity of the new lanes. I expected to see a serious and sober analysis of the project, albeit one perhaps with assumptions and explanations that I strongly disagreed with. However the original report was riddled with errors and omissions, and was wildly insufficient to foster a meaningful discussion on the impacts of the project. I was disappointed that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was issued on the basis of that initial document, but hopeful that ODOT would use the second chance provided by revisions to the project to produce the complete and respectful analysis that the community deserves. Unfortunately, the document provided continues to fall short of even the most basic standards and expectations, as detailed in the paragraphs that follow. Missing input volumes and figures As a technical document, ODOT s Traffic Analysis Supplemental Technical Report (TASTR) purports to be scientific in nature. Thus it must meet the basic standard of repeatability. As such, professionally prepared transportation studies invariably include the raw data used and calculations performed at each step of the way, typically with a combination of figures and infographics within the report body and supporting materials within appendices. Critically, the TASTR deviates significantly from the requirements set forth for such documents within ODOT s Analysis Procedures Manual (APM). Text from the APM itself states a clear purpose and mandate: The Analysis Procedures Manual (APM) was created to provide a comprehensive source of information regarding current methodologies, practices and procedures for conductinganalysis of Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) plans and projects The APM shall be utilized by ODOT staff as well as external consultants and contractors conducting and reviewing plans, projects and/or studies for ODOT. (APM pg. v)However, there are many instances of specific guidance within the APM that are followed only loosely or ignored outright within the TASTR, typically without explanation, particularly with regard to reporting traffic volumes. The best summary of the APM s guidance in this regard is likely contained within the opening of Section 5.6.3, Documentation. It is critical that after every step in the 30HV volume development process that all of the assumptions and factors are carefully documented, preferably on the graphical figures themselves. (APM pg. 5-36) Unfortunately, not only does the document fail to disclose all assumptions and calculations at each step, but almost no information is provided whatsoever regarding volumes and assumptions. Indeed, there are no figures nor are any volume data provided within the body of the report. Volumes can be found for some scenarios within modeling outputs provided in the appendix, but this is of limited utility. Based upon the information provided, there is no way to check any calculations, claims, or assumptions regarding volumes, despite the APM s clear and repeated statements on the importance of documentation and repeatability. Figure 1 illustrates the extent of the missing and/or ill-documented traffic volume information within the TASTR. A well-prepared study will include documentation of raw volumes, volumes for all analysis scenarios, and exhaustive information of the calculations and assumptions leading from one stage of the process to the next, as shown in the figure. By contrast, the TASTR includes missing data and calculations at many steps and unclear or incomplete information at all others. Key results reported erroneously Tables 5 and 6 of the TASTR are arguably the most important pieces of the document, as these tables contain the top-level results of the proposed freeway expansion including differences in levels-of-service and volume-to-capacity ratios of I-5 between build and no-build scenarios for the first (Table 5) and second (Table 6) set of morning and evening peak hours. However these results are clearly reported in error, with identical results reported for both the first and second morning peak hours. It is unclear which (if either) peak hour the reported results correspond to. It is my understanding that No More Freeways asked ODOT to provide a correction, with ODOT responding that the issue would be addressed following the public comment period. I do not want to belabor what is almost certainly a transcription error of the sort that I ve made a hundred times myself but this is an error that simply has to be corrected before asking an audience to take the document seriously. The fact that the errant results still stand not only deprives the public of an opportunity to understand the impacts of the project in aggregate, but call into question all other results reported and claims made within the document. Was the report subjected to any sort of scrutiny or internal review? If this clear error went unnoticed, what other harder-to-spoterrors were not caught? It is noted that if the report met the repeatability standard, this would be a far less significant error. One could simply retrace the steps within the report to determine which (if either) morning peak hour the reported results correspond to, and even fill in the missing results if one were so inclined. But in providing so little information regarding volumes, this report essentially asks readers to take its findings on faith. That obviously becomes a lot harder to do when an error this obvious, and of this magnitude, remains within the document of record. IBR construction assumed; tolling not assumed I appreciate that the updated study included an appendix item detailing Reasonably Foreseeable Future Actions upon which assumptions on future volumes are based (though of course no actual quantitative information on these assumptions is provided). Based upon this, future volumes assume new demand induced from the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR), presumably as currently proposed, but no reduction based upon tolling. While the factor upon which this decision is based inclusion in Metro s Regional Transportation Plan may be as good as any, it certainly seems to be one that is fortuitous for anyone hoping to make a case for additional capacity. If not for the other omissions and errors I ve detailed this might be a bit easier to swallow, but given the context it is certainly reasonable to question whether this assumption constitutes a thumb on the scale, so to speak. This appearance is compounded by the fact that the IBR project is assumed to induce demand which is subsequently considered here (atleast that s what we assume; with the volume data provided it s impossible to know!), but no induced demand is assumed for the Rose Quarter freeway expansion and other project elements. Regardless, the community would be better served by an analysis scenario that includes the possibility that no freeway expansion is included when the Interstate Bridge is replaced, and an analysis scenario that includes the possibility of volume reductions based on tolling. The necessity of these additional scenarios and analyses of alternatives helps underscore the need for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Unexplained detrimental(?) neighborhood impacts The TASTR provides a comparison between build and no-build operations for a number of key intersections impacted by the project for the morning and evening peak hours. Twelve intersections are analyzed for two peak hours each (a thirteenth intersection, which is created by the project is also included). In eleven of the 24 instances (per Tables 7 & 8), the proposed project results in a degraded level-of-service (LOS) at a neighborhood intersection, and in seven others the project results in the same level-of-service. Only in six of the 24 instances does the project improve level-of-service. I hasten to point out that this isn t necessarily a bad thing. It is appropriate for peak hour conditions in many urban settings to entail some delay for drivers, and level-of-service is certainly an imperfect and incomplete metric for measuring impacts. I suspect that the degradation of LOS at several intersections is likely due to planned improvements to the bike and/or pedestrian infrastructure, which I wholeheartedly support. However, the lack of explanation combines with the lack of figures here to keep everyone guessing as to the causes. My fear is that, without explanation, these reductions LOS for drivers may be used as a cudgel to weaken or eliminate the active transportation infrastructure proposed. Ideally, this section of the analysis would include an exhaustive explanation of what was causing the LOS and volume-to-capacity (v/c) differences between the scenarios so that the relative pros and cons could be debated.Unexplained nonstandard modeling assumptions The work detailed within the TASTR includes several other modeling inputs and assumptions that differ, without explanation, from guidance offered by the APM. Two examples are that a saturation flow rate of 1,900 vehicles per lane per hour throughout the study area (APM guidance indicates that 1,750 vplph is more appropriate in most urban conditions) and a peak hour factor of 0.95 is uniformly assumed throughout the study area (peak hour factors are typically calculated from volume data). Such assumptions likely do not significantly impact the reported results, but they are certainly nonstandard and as such should be justified. In a vacuum these factors are relatively minor considerations, but combined with the other problems within this report serve to underscore the need for further analysis and explanation. Effectiveness of Tolling The appendix of the TASTR includes a brief memorandum dated July 21, 2022 with the subject line of RMPP/RQ Regional Travel Demand Model Sensitivity Test Results Summary. While this document too fails to reveal much in the way of volumes, calculations, or assumptions, it shows exceedingly promising initial results for tolling as a mechanism to reduce traffic congestion, far outstripping the minor impact resulting from the proposed lane expansion. While the language within the summary rather hilariously attempts to understate the relative impacts of tolling versus lane expansion that the analysis found, the analysis itself is clear that tolling is a potential game changer. It absolutely must be looked at a strategy that could complement or even replace the lane expansion. Conclusion and Necessity of an EIS The TASTR as currently written fails utterly to provide a sufficient basis for a finding of no significant impact. There are obvious errors and omissions within the document, and the document roundly fails to meet ODOT s own requirements as set forth in the analysis procedures manuals. It appears that there is a win/win/win within plain sight here: Build the freeway caps and neighborhood improvements, address congestion via tolling and alternatives, and value-engineer out the lane expansion. This is unquestionably the project that the community wants, and to the extent that this process has produced useful analysis, the preponderance of evidence point clearly to this as the best solution. The previous environmental assessment was prominently referred to as a shortcut as the public and electeds began to come to grips with the associated process and findings. It remains a shortcut, and one that continues to ill-serve the public. If a freeway expansion must be constructed then it must undergo the requisite level of environmental review, which is an Environmental Impact Statement based on any reasonable reading of the National Environmental Policy Act. ODOT should pivot to an EIS without further ado. The case for a finding of no significant impact has not been made, and such a finding would be specious at best without an EIS given the likelihood of significant impacts resulting from this project. With Best Regards, Brian A. Davis, AICP Principal | Planner | Maker |
| 7652 | Je | Amaechi | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I m not native to Portland, but I am a Black person who has lived with the effects of gentrification in NY. For the past 8 years I ve lived in Portland, I have organized for community safety and spoken with Black elders in the community who have experienced the worst of Portland s racist development policy. This is not only a continuation of those racist development policies, this is also an environmental disaster. That area is already congested in a way that makes the air toxic, increase pollution, violence and makes it a terrible place to walk around. Just a few months ago I was hit by a car careening off the highway, just down the street from my house. The Rose Quarter freeway expansion will increase car accidents, and make the toxic air and pollution even worse. It fills me with disdain to see ODOT contributing to making Portland unliveable in this way. We should be creating alternatives that support the environment AND the people of Portland. The expansion doesn t do either. It helps people who don t live in Portland and businesses who don t operate here. If the freeloading freeway riders want to reap the benefits of Portland they should move here so they can contribute to the infrastructure through taxes. Stop supporting white flight and start supporting public transit. The best cities are never the ones with the most efficient highways- those are actually the WORST cities in fact. The best cities are where the public transit infrastructure is quality such that both the rich and poor want to use it. Do not allow this regressive expansion to pass. Best believe weWILL hold those accountable for passing this. |
| 7653 | David | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Wait what, I don't just demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement, I demand that they don't expand the freeway at all. Cars are a mode of transport that becomes less efficient as they scale. What are they thinking expanding the freeway. There will be no benefit from this. It's only going to make the city more inefficient than it already is. If they genuinely wanted to improve mobility in western Portland they would expand commuter rail services to the region.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 4:48 pm | |
| 7654 | Dave | Shaut | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full EIS on the proposal to expand I5 through the Rose Quarter. These large scale changes should be evaluated to ensure that they are not further harming the environment. As a region, alternatives to car transportation need to be evaluated in order to reduce CO2 and emissions, which harm the climate, accelerate climate change, and are hazardous to those who live near these projects. It is alarming that the politics of the status quo do not take into account the accelerating cycle of climate change our region is facing. If there is momentum to build lids as reparative justice, then, that should move forward without having to widen the freeway. It seems like ODOT has been disingenuous with the descriptions of the project, and the addition of width to the freeway would allow for more lanes in the future, which then will likely induce more driving. I endorse a full EIS on the project, and transparency in the costs and inevitable overruns.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 4:44 pm |
| 7655 | Autumn | King | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Alternatives to the Rose Quarter freeway expansion have not been adequately assessed. This project is prioritizing vehicle travel time over quality of life issues. Expanding the Rose Quarter freeway will create induced demand that will result in more traffic, more pollution, and will lead to more vehicle slowdowns in years to come. The cost of the project should not be weighed in dollars alone because there are unconsidered expenses that endanger our community s livability. If ODOT serves the public interest, they must conduct a full EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter freeway expansion. Failure to complete an EIS for this proposal demonstrates a negligent disregard for the health and well-being of our community. We should be investing in sustainable transportation that puts people before cars. The long-term impacts of air pollution disproportionally impact the Albina neighborhood. If this project moves forward, at the very minimum, caps should be installed. The people of Portland and our neighbors in the Albina deserve cleaner air and safer, more sustainable transportation options.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 4:29 pm |
| 7656 | Julie | Garner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: With climate change getting worse every year, I'm blown away that ANYONE could be advocating for widening freeways. All of that money should be used to massively improve non driving alternatives. So many other cities around the world are doing this and it's embarrassing that we're having to put up such a fight in a supposedly bike friendly and green city. Portland is better than this.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 6:18 pm |
| 7657 | Elizabeth | Westarp | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I pedal a bicycle to get to work and places of business in N/NE Portland. I fear for my life if you increase motor vehicle traffic on N Vancouver & Williams Avenues. Are you trying to force me to drive a car and add to Portland traffic and pollution? Do you not care about the lives of Portlanders? I am saddened by your putting freight first. Please do NOT expand I-5.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:57 pmContact Form URL: https://nomorefreewayspdx.com/lidsnotlanes/ |
| 7658 | Cheryl | Curru | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Expansion is a major decision that would have significant repercussions on Portland s already poor air quality, which affects workers, parents, pets, and kids well being. The serious consideration of lids seems like the wisest next step. ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:47 pm |
| 7659 | Schurkey | Toll-based highways need to be illegal.The primary purpose is to screw the public in order to provide funding that can then be misused on worthless pet projects that benefit special-interest groups rather than the public at large.Most of the "improvements" to the American streets/highways in recent years are actually downgrades intended to annoy and harass the owner/operator of motor vehicles for short-sighted, misguided "politically-correct" purposes. EVERYONE associated with tolling on I-5 and/or "Complete Streets", "Vision Zero", or any form of "traffic calming" needs to be fired, and prosecuted for misuse of public funding.Tolling/traffic calming/Zero Vision are what Society has to put up with when libtards are in control. Schurkey | |
| 7660 | Allan | Rudwick | ODOT: Please find the attached letter. Included inline for your convenienceJanuary 4th, 2023To: Elected Officials, ODOT, USDOT, Oregon Transportation Commission Governor-Elect Tina Kotek Portland Mayor Wheeler US Senator Ron Wyden US Senator Jeff Merkley US Congressman Earl Blumenauer US DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg Oregon Senator Frederick Portland Commissioner Rubio Representative Sanchez Portland Commissioner Mapps Multnomah County Chair Pederson Portland Commissioner Ryan Multnomah County Commissioner Jayapal Portland Commissioner Gonzalez Metro Council President Lynn Peterson Metro Councilor Mary Nolan Sabrina Foward, OTC Coordinator ODOT Director Chris Strickler Re: I-5 Rose Quarter Expansion Supplemental Environmental Assessment This project would be a major step in the wrong direction for our city, the climate, and our neighborhood. We are asking for one of two options: a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for this project that studies real alternatives to highway expansion including removing I-5 from the Eliot neighborhood, congestion tolling and lids without lane expansion. We know what the real impact of this version of the project will be already and if that study is not going to be done then we ask for the second option: that you eliminate all funding, cease all planning work, and completely abandon the I-5 Rose Quarter Project. We additionally ask that this project be removed from all Portland and Metro Transportation System Plans. Further study of the existing proposal will not substantially change the project s impacts on our city and neighborhood, which will continue the devastation that I-5 already has had here. Delaying the project only to kill it later is a waste of time and taxpayer resources that should be instead planning a better, greener future for our regional transportation system. The $129 Million that has been allocated for the current planning process would have been a great down payment for rebuilding Lower Albina, but we can t get that money back. Portland has a legacy of turning down ill-advised freeway projects. We removed the Harbor Drive Freeway in 1974 and canceled the Mt. Hood Freeway in 1976. Let's add to that "canceled I-5 expansion in 2023." Environmental JusticeThe construction of I-5 through the Albina district, including Eliot, is symptomatic of systemic racism in public policy that destroyed Portland s Black neighborhoods. Eliot has struggled due to generations of public planning mistakes from the 1950s to 1970s especially that reduced housing in the area for large public projects with questionable benefits. One of the more recent wins that area residents had was the construction of Harriet Tubman Middle School. However, students at Tubman have to breathe toxic exhaust from cars and diesel trucks driving through Portland. While there is now talk and money to help move that school away from I-5, there will still be buildings and people walking through the area. If we care about mitigating the effects of pollution for this vulnerable population, we must discuss how to make our car and truck fleet pollute much less. We must also consider the long term goal of reducing the impacts of, andultimately the removal of I-5 and other freeways. Our neighbors in Vancouver, BC refused to construct urban freeways in the first place and they have thrived without them. No freeway expansion has ever reduced congestion. Adding capacity to I-5 is all but guaranteed to result in increased cars and truck trips, leading to worse air quality, especially for our neighborhood and the students of Tubman. Climate Change According to the latest data from the International Panel on Climate Change, we have 7 years to cut carbon emissions by half in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. This necessitates a dramatic shift in how our society does everything, including moving people and goods. If we are going to have any meaningful chance of addressing climate change, we need to make dramatic moves to shift trips away from cars to more sustainable modes like public transit, biking, and walking. An investment in widening our freeways is an investment in another nail in our collective coffin. If we care about human society persisting beyond the 22nd century, we must start getting cars off the roads ASAP. Lack of Transportation Throughput Benefits The Rose Quarter widening project was initially conceived by highway planners to remove a bottleneck in the freeway system. This bottleneck is conveniently located in between several other bottlenecks. When traffic is at its worst in the evening peak hours, there are long lines of cars on I-5 north, on I-405 west, on I-84 east and occasionally on I-5 south of the project area. Essentially, all traffic getting stuck at the Rose Quarter is on its way to another bottleneck. These cars will not benefit substantially by being rushed through the Rose Quarter faster only to find themselves in the next bottleneck. If traffic were to improve in the area substantially, latent and induced demand would immediately increase traffic volumes through the area. There might be a few minutes or hours per day where cars and trucks were able to see travel time benefits, however we do not believe this will become the dominant condition on the highway. During the 2010-12 process, we were told that the highway engineers were struggling with their computer models to show that the project had any benefits at all. Recently, we have found out that the models projecting benefits from the project are due to inclusion of all projects in the Regional Transportation Plan being built. Institutional memory shows that we have never accomplished that in the past and it is an unwiseassumption to make going forward. A true no-build analysis would show that this project on its own will not provide substantial benefits. Minority Contractors and Job Creation One of the main benefits touted by the ODOT project team is a large commitment to using minority contractors to do the work on this project. ODOT is conducting a large amount of work in the region and we see no reason why this project needs special minority contracting provisions for this project specifically. The ENA is very supportive of requiring diverse contractors to build public and private developments within the area. However, using this as a carrot to build an unwanted, wasteful and useless highway widening project is not what we should be spending this money on. Safety ODOT has pitched this project to neighborhoods as a way to move more vehicles more quickly through the Rose Quarter, both on I-5 and on surface streets. Higher speeds and increased throughput on surface roads increase the chances a driver will kill or maim another road user. Our transportation network should prioritize safety instead of speed. The latest design hybrid 3 seems to have benefits over the previous iteration of the EA, however there are still several major problems with the designs that we expect will result in fatalities before band-aids are added after the proposed construction. We are aware the current renderings are not finalized, but it appears bikes continue to be an afterthought and will be squeezed in where it is possible at the last minute, likely leading to unsafe outcomes. Many dangerous intersections in this area have had multiple bicycle and pedestrian crashes and deaths in the past. These include Broadway/I-5/Williams and roadway/Flint intersections. The lives that have been lost are a testament to the bad engineering decisions made in the past; the incremental improvements made throughout the years reflect learnings on how to make the streets safer. Redesigning all of the streets in thearea may place us back in a situation where we have to live with untested designs at the risk of more accidents, injuries and fatalities. ODOT s own data indicate that the freeway section in question does not experience dangerous accidents at a higher than average rate. If safety is our priority, we the public would get the best bang for our buck by investing in major safety overhauls on surface streets which double as state highways in East Portland. Fiscal Responsibility Half a billion dollars is a substantial amount of money. Three times that, $1.2-$1.5 Billion is a huge amount. America collectively and the Portland region have invested a ton of money in project after project to increase the freeway network. Locally, Portland has avoided most of these projects due to smart-minded citizens and politicians knowing that moving more traffic through an area (even if slightly faster) does not help build a stronger City, only placemaking does. The I-5 Rose Quarter project does not offer a good return on investment. It is just doubling down on the value-destroying investment of I-5 itself. As ODOT has a huge maintenance backlog, capital expenditure on additional infrastructure is irresponsible. Going deeply in debt to pay for investments with no payback is even more negligent. This is not a correct prioritization of public funds given the State s policy goals. While improving interstate commerce is a valid goal, ODOT is over a decade into pretending to develop a congestion pricing scheme which would actually solve the problem. We are incredibly disappointed to see tolling be considered as a way to pay for this project when it will have no real public benefits. Urban Design Problems / Lack of Local Improvements At its core, the I-5 Rose Quarter project has always been a highway widening project. All of the "local improvements" are afterthoughts that may even make the local streets worse for many road users. The pedestrian and bike infrastructure in the area has been improving incrementally over the past two decades, and while there is room for improvement, this project does not directly address existing hazards. The designs ODOT and PBOT have presented give us little faith that after this project is completed, the pedestrian, transit, and bicycle setup will even be as comfortable and efficient as the current status quo. The lids proposed by the project team have improved tremendously since the original EA, however it is unclear where money might materialize from to build on the caps, and if buildings do not go there, we doubt we will see much use of the new public space. The renderings presented by ODOT still depict several traffic islands isolated by high traffic rights-of-way. We would recommend visiting the triangular diverter where MLK and Grand merge at NE Hancock or the existing highway shoulder encampments for examples of how we can expect these spaces to be utilized. Spaces that are not accessible and have no active programming are not going to be used and seem destined to be abandoned and ignored by all but those with no other place to sleep. If we are going to make a multi-generational investment in the Rose Quarter Area, we need to do it right. This process is coming at the urban design problem from a vehicle throughput lens which will further deteriorate the street activity in the area. The only hope coming from this project are the buildings in the renderings that have no funding or developer attached to them. This does not feel like a realistic plan to build buildings, but just a way to use PR to sell a project to a rightly-skeptical public. Project Casting a Dark Cloud over adjacent development Since the I-5 Expansion at the Rose Quarter was proposed in the 2011-12 timeframe during the Central City Planning process, there have been several block-scale developments proposed in the lower Broadway-Weidler corridor. None of these projects were built and we have heard that the reason is that this project being in limbo for the past decade is the reason. We would like to see clarity around this to help jump-start development of Lower Albina and the southern end of the Eliot Neighborhood. The Eliot Neighborhood is an inner neighborhood and it was once a thriving commercial and residential place. The natural patterns of development are trying to make it back into that type of place, but the highway and large landowners in the area are preventing that vision and natural state from recurring. Buildings on top of the highway would support this vision, however we fear that empty lids without buildings will simply continue the pattern of disinvestment in the area. We have yet to see any financial plan that would put buildings on the lids. Because of that the renderings feel like a public relations stunt not a real plan. Misalignment with Portland and Oregon's Stated Goals Portland has adopted Vision Zero, a Climate Action Plan and vehicle mode-split goals. The I-5 Rose Quarter project is anathema to all of these. The project is a 20th century transportation solution in a world of 21st century problems. The net outcome will inevitably be higher regional vehicle miles traveled (VMT), which is highly correlated with traffic fatalities. More VMT also will inevitably lead to higher C02 emissions, which undermines our climate change goals. Making it faster and easier to drive has historically always led to more driving. This violates our mode-split goals. The direct fiscal costs of the project, while high, pale before those of the externalities and the opportunity costs of this investment. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, The Eliot Neighborhood Association Jimmy Wilson Board co-Chair, Eliot Neighborhood Association Allan Rudwick Land Use Chair, Eliot Neighborhood Association |
| 7661 | Nicholas | Hodge | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am still incredibly concerned about the impact of this project if not properly carried out. It is clear now that induced demand is real, so if the motivation is to improve traffic flow through this portion of I-5, we desperately need to invest in alternative ways for people to get around the city. I understand that large semis need highways to move products throughout the state, region, and country. If we provided alternative for private vehicles driven by locals, that gets them off the road and reduces congestion for those that have no other choice but to drive on I-5. Just adding additional lanes will not solve the congestion problem and may, in fact, make it worse. I am also very passionate about caps over I-5 to stitch the city back together and repair some of the past harms done to this community.So, top priorities should be: 1) major investment in alternative forms of transportation (public transit, bike/rolling infrastructure, and a robust pedestrian network) 2) highway caps over I-5 to stitch the city back together________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:28 pm |
| 7662 | Anne | Thrall-Nash | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I hold a degree in environmental economics and am currently a MSL student at Lewis and Clark Law School in environmental law. Any federal funding of this project should trigger a full EIS, as expanding I-5 has clear and significant environmental implications. Inducing car traffic demand by expanding the freeway is short-sighted and not what Oregon or the people of the Albina neighborhood need. What is needed is investment in transit, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and the reconnection of the Albina neighborhood.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:25 pm |
| 7663 | Mary | Davies | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The air quality near Harriet Tubman School has already been shown to harm the students their, and widening freeways does not reduce traffic. Invest in better more accessible public transportation.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:24 pm |
| 7664 | Amy | Murray | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: There is a climate crisis that threatens all life on the planet. I want public transit that is affordable and takes me everywhere I need to go. I don't need expanded freeways.________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:17 pm |
| 7665 | Ineke | Deruyter | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The last thing we need is more freeways where more cars can burn fossil fuels while poisoning our environment. Instead we need to limit those fuels by improving public transportation fueled by electricity. We need to work towards clean air to breathe for the citizens of Portland and to improve our environment for future generations. More freeways to accommodate more cars is not the answer!________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 5:12 pm |
| 7666 | Joseph | McGinley | As a resident of Portland, I support a cap over I-5 . In fact, I support capping the whole entirety of I5 through central Portland.I DO NOT SUPPORT adding lanes to the freeway. It is not in line with our climate goals and $1.5 billion could go a long way toward investing in active transportation, public transportation, and making our current system more efficient. Widening the freeway is a waste of my taxpayer dollars and I do not support such a misinformed, outdated expenditure. |
| 7667 | Andrea | Gall | I am not in support of adding additional lanes to I-5. Induced demand is a well documented result of adding more lanes to highways. Increasing highway capacity will not reduce congestion long-term. We should instead be investing our limited resources in improving public transit. I am supportive of covering the highway, seismic upgrades, and adding bike & pedestrian infrastructure. I feel strongly that ODOT should pause to reconsider why it continues to propose and implement policies of increasing highway capacity despite decades of research that demonstrate it's ineffectiveness over the long term and the impacts to our urgent climate goals. |
| 7669 | Aaron | Brown | Date: 4 January 2023 To: Megan Channell, ODOT Oregon Transportation Commission From: Aaron Brown, No More Freeways Chris Smith, No More Freeways Subject: Documents included in No More Freeways' submission to Supplemental Environmental Assessment for Proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion On Wednesday, January 4, 2023, No More Freeways distributed dozens of postcards and a USB thumb drive to the address (888 SW 5th Ave, Suite 600) listed on ODOT's official website as the official location to deliver public testimony. These videos, audio clips, photos and documents are intended to be included in the public comment on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the proposed freeway expansion. This document serves as a folder directory we submitted on this thumb drive; these files will also be made available on Google Drive: Primary Comment Letter from No More Freeways and Neighbors for Clean Air on 2023 Supplemental EA Attachments to Primary Comment Letter - Includes photos from the Lillis/Albina Park and documents produced by the Independent Covers Assessment. All files are referenced from No More Freeways and Neighbors for Clean Air main comment letter Video and photos from No More Freeway Events - contains video and photos from the January 3rd, 2023 event at People's Public Hearing that No More Freeways, Eliot Neighborhood Association and Neighbors for Clean Air hosted at Harriet Tubman Middle School conducted during the Supplemental EA Public Comment Period. Over 70 community members attended and 24 testified, with all 24 speaking in support of ODOT conducting a full Environmental Impact Statement. Our organizations chose to host this in-person public comment event because ODOT refused to host their own despite NMF's September 2022 letter inquiring if they'd hold one. The folder also includes video from the April 9, 2021 "Tubman Rally" held by the same groups the week after filing a NEPA lawsuit, footage from a July 2021 "Youth Vs ODOT" rally taken by BikePortland, and footage from the December 10, 2019 rally outside ODOT held by Sunrise PDX. 2019 Environmental Assessment Public Record - The comments from the 2019 EA are attached to ensure their inclusion in the 2023 Supplemental EA. City Observatory - Commentary relevant to Rose Quarter Expansion Project published in City Observatory Public Records - This folder includes public records obtained via requests from Dr Tara Goddard, Alan Kessler and Joe Cortright. Media - contains journalism and opinion articles written since the conclusion of the 2019 Public Comment period about ODOT and the proposed freeway expansion, including coverage from The New York Times, VICE, Oregonian, BikePortland, Portland Mercury, Willamette Week and Bloomberg's CityLab. Other Relevant Files - Research, policy and data relevant to proposed freeway expansion project that are not specifically referenced from comments, to be part of public record. Miscellaneous: Additional material relevant to the Supplemental Environmental Assessment No More Freeways PO BOX 83643 Portland, OR 97283 www.nomorefreeways.com facebook.com/nomorefreewayspdx IG/twitter: @nomorefreeways info@nomorefreewayspdx.com |
| 7670 | Griffin | Pahl | Dear Reader, thank you so much for your work. I hope you have a lovely day after work today. Dear Person In Charge, the ire is directed at you. Hello, My name is Griffin. I am deeply disturbed by the Mercury article I read today, which brings to light the dangerous new I-5 plan. I have suggestions! Why not make cycle/pedestrian bridges to facilitate non-car mobility? Or a priority right-of-way areas for soft-bodied animals who hope to use this area that's primarily designed for rapidly-moving, multi-ton, metal-oil machines? Another suggestion: for that 5 mile section of I-5, why not slow the speed limit to 45 or 50? It would reduce motor collisions, and it would curb the stop-and-go traffic caused by high speed limits in high traffic areas. It can't be much more than a million and a half dollars, and it's worth it if you actually care about the lives of the people who live in this city more than the commerce that feeds the bottomless bellies of oil barons. Also, please try to make some accessible green space available in your plan. Trees, shrubs, forbs, mosses, lichens, to counteract the extra emissions that this project will produce. It is not only nice to see and smell, but also necessary for a healthy community. The article says YOU KNOW THAT THE NEW PROJECT WILL INCREASE PEDESTRIAN AND CYCLIST DEATHS. I ask you: How in the heck is this helpful for the community? I use Vancouver Ave. Almost every day on my bicycle commute. Many folks do. I already face near-death experiences about once every two weeks. In my effort to save money, to exercise, and to treat the planet with more respect by riding my bike to and from work, I know I must make sacrifices. However, my LIFE and the lives of my neighbors are not fair, everyday sacrifices. It is the responsibility of the government agencies of the city and the state to keep me/us safe and provide access to infrastructure that supports my/our decision to walk/ride my bike safely. If you go through with a project that you KNOW WILL INCREASE HUMAN CASUALTIES for the sake of making car travel easier, you are a murderer for profit. You must not bill this as a boon to the Communities of Color who were forced out by previous I-5 projects, if the result is more People of Color killed by I-5 projects, which you KNOW will be the likely result. It is farce, it is tricky, it is corruption, it is evil. You must not say something is for the community when your plan involves killing members of the community for the sake of people passing through quickly with no intention of stopping, or even slowing down.Excuse me please, but I have one more thing: Adding extra lanes just from on-ramp to off-ramp to avoid traffic? Whose idea was that?! Why not suggest people DON'T ENTER THE FREEWAY JUST FOR ONE goshdarn EXIT, in order to reduce traffic? They could just take Williams/Vancouver! Or MLK/Grand! They're a minute away! You're making unnecessary, dangerous, expensive concessions for drivers because they're lazy and make bad transit decisions. Please, listen to the human brain deep within your carapace of oil, steel, and money. Listen to your heart. Act for people, not for profit, PLEASE.Love, Griffin |
| 7671 | Anonymous | MAYBE THEY'RE JUST BLEEPIN' CRAZY!! IS ODOT OUT OF TOUCH? OR IS THE TRANSPORTATION AGENCY MERELY TONE DEAF? IN COOPTING THE "ONION DOME" FOR USE IN THEIR PROPAGANDA, ODOT HAS EITHER IGNORED HISTORY ALTOGETHER OR SIMPLY DEMONSTRATED THEIR TRUE INTENT TO CONTINUE AN ONGOING APOLOGIA. IN THE 1970S, THE DEMOLITION OF ALBINA WAS CAPPED BY THE REMOVAL OF THIS ARCHITECTURAL FEATURE. EMANUEL HOSPITAL ARGUED IT NEEDED THE LAND UDER THE DOME AT KNOTT AND WILLIAMS. TO THIS DAY THE LAND LIES FALLOW. THE LEADERS AT CITY HALL THOUGHT IT APPROPRIATE TO PLACE THE ONION DOME IN DAWSON PARK TO FORM A KIND OF GAZEBO. IN THE 2000S, THE CITY REFURBISHED THE DOME. BY THE 2010S THE CITY RESTURCTURED THE PARK. THESE ACTIONS WERE PRESENTED AS A NOD - OR A SOP - TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY. NOW THE ONION DOME'S AT THE VERY EPICENTER OF BOTH DRUG CRIME AND OF VIOLENT MURDERS BY GUN. NO EFFORT HAS EVER BEEN MADE TO RECTIFY THE WRONGS PERPETRATED IN THE NAME OF PROGRESS. USING THE ONION DOME IN YOUR PUBLICITY IS ADDING GRAVE INSULT TO REAL AND LASTING INJURY. | |
| 7673 | Jerry | Logan | INTRDUCTIONJerry Logan, 87yrs old [Redacted] Dumb is as Dumb does~ for one who traveles to Portland (1948) from Centrailia on a 2 lane hi-way, traveled down Stark st., (before 1-84 was built), on a cushman scooter to get a. 25 cent hamberburger fries and drink at Scotties drive inn about 12th and Sandy blvd. ----been here long enough to see the big picture/any thing less than a totaly;;tNew WEST SIDE freeway from Battleground to Willsonville with a new bridge (next to the RR bridbe) leading TRUCK and traffic (vehicle) to and thru the industrial ,-West side is an exercise in futility. The Rose quarter re-build and tolling on I-205 is a NON SOLUTION---Meets the defination of DUMB.Logan Nov. 29-2022Stop the music! We've spent how many dollars on engineering on the proposed Vancouver-Portland bridge? What are they thinking? C~y not long term traffic solution. , The proposed location will just add to the congestion in the Rose Quarter down town area ofl-5. Ask yourself, where would we be with out (congestion wise) with out the 1-205 bridge and freeway. Let's look at the big picture with future growth in mind. To best illustrate this, bear with me , while I use an example;----Suppose, an engineer planner in his age of 63 , just shie of retirement. That person born in 1950, where the only 4 lane road that I was aware of was the toll road.fennsylma.---1Yin -11ike as a far different world of transportation . This was before President Eisenhower's push for better road in the USA. The drive with my folk's to New York City in 1950 was all the way on 2 lane roads. The drive from Centraila Washington to Portland through the stop lights of little towns Like Toledo (Washington) and Castle Rock on 2 lane 4- twisting roads took 7 and a half hours. Now consider; that person born in 1950 probably wasn't ~ aware of transportation arrangements until he reached the age of say 10 years. By then in 1960, the 4 - lane hi-way system was mostly in place or being built (such as the Banfield). The point being made by my illustration, is that ( assuming most of CRC planners, more likely in the 30 to 50 yr. Range) those planners don't have a clue as to the needs of our future transportation needs. Why are we not looking to the future inevitable growth of traffic and putting America back to work building a Western version of l-205-lets call it 1-305. It could start heading south (and west of l-5) somewhere in the vicinity of the fairgrounds., parallel the railroad west of Vancouver, follow the present truck route through St. Johns and into the industrial area of Portland West side. A New bridge crossing th Willamete river would be needed and eventually (possibly) a tunnel through directly to the Beaverton area then rejoining 1-5 somewhere near Willsonville. Any thing short if this in view of growing population needs is a short sighted "Head in the sand" short term, non solution. As mentioned further on, the new 1-305 bridge near the existing RR bridge would put it far enough away from the air port so that its height would not be a problem Surely, going back to my illustration of the CRC planners, enough of them are old enough to witness the building of the 1-205 bridge and free-way. When it was first built in the 70's it was like a deserted parking lot on Sunday with very few cars ----- Now its bumper to bumper during rush hour and a slow moving parking lot, if some one gets careless and gets in to an accident. Why is it that we, as a nation are losing our competitive edge, using the "quick fix" , a less than inspiring solution that in reality is a slow drift to third world status. We only need to look around us, to Germany and their conversion to solar energy, China with its 200 mph trains, Sweden with their high tech. Bio-gas plant that turns household garbage yard debris and animal waste into usable energy (with out stinking up the neighborhood).(See National Geographic article, Dec. 2012-page 104) What we have instead is 1960 vintage passenger and freight trains, bridges past their prime, in need of repair or replacement. To solve our (Portland garbage) problem the latest cheap scheme is to throw it in a pile and try to appease irate neighbors for stinking up the air. A cheap solution to Portland's down town congestion problem is to build a new (CRC bridge) to replace the now existing one, which in reality is a non-solution , with the future increase in population and subsequent traffic. Another uninspired solution to overproduction of power by the dam system in the winter high water, is to shut the wind generators down, rather than engineering a hydrogen plant to use the excess wind energy, thus providing hydrogen for transportation vehicles . No, we are in grid-lock by Republican obstruction, urinating our (borrowed) money away in support of Egypt and Israel, with no money or initiative to progress as a country. It does indeed cost money to rebuild with a thought for the future, but consider what Eisenhower did with the high-way upgrade. It was even good for the economy, putting people to work. CRC reasons stated for bridge replacement 1.-Relieve truck traffic ( does nothing to address that) Solution;-West side "TWIN" to 1-205 Let's call it 1-305. 2.-Relieve general traffic congestion-the proposed bridge does nothing to address future And in addition a suggested toll booth would only exaggerate the problem. 3.-light rail-no reason that couldn't be included in a different placement. 4.-Vehicle crashes on existing bridge-{caused by careless or in-attentive drivers)-you can't Legislate intelligence, they will be with us forever. 5.-Bridge lifts on existing 1-5 vs traffic stops-with 1-305, 30 to 50 % less traffic problem. 6.- who rides a bicycle to work from Vancouver? 7.-Seismic vulnerability ----an unknown when and if such would occur, if and when it did occur The new I- 305 bridge would lessen the traffic problem. Conclusion; CRC bridge as proposed is a bridge to further congestion.The older homes in the path of new construction ofl-305 expansion would give the occupants an opportunity to move into modem energy efficient housing. It goes with out saying that this suggested freeway expansion would provide much needed construction jobs. Jerry Logan Subject; CRC Crossing I don't claim to be smarter than anyone involved in the current CRC bridge design , I do however have something that "ACE's' Any thing or any one in that department has and that is the fact that I have been on 00D's green earth longer than any in that dept. Long enough to see the growth of our population and the necessary growth of the infrastructure necessary to accommodate that growth. Unless some one back in the coffee room has discovered a magic pill to e1iminate people having babies, the population growth of the next 20 or 30 years makes your current "CRC' design and location a "Loser" from day one. What you are dealing with is an already congested area (admittable by your self) and making it worse long term. By building a west side (of Vancouver) version of l-205 ( let's call it 1-305 for this discussion), it will give truckers better access to the west side industrial area and a better route for those Vancouver residence who have jobs in Beaverton area, to say nothing about eliminating the Lloyd center traffic jam. ! . - By putting the new CRC bridge next the current Rail crossing, not only does it gets truckers out of the congested east side area, but gets the bridge far enough away from the small airfield that the height should no longer be a problem. 2. - True, a second St. Johns's bridge may be necessary to eliminate a choke point-so be it-Lets put America back to work, rather than blowing it on ungrateful foreign countries. 3 - Phase 2, in the future, include a tunnel from the west side river crossing through and over to the Beaverton area eventually tying back in to 1-5 in the Wilsonville area. We now have amazing tunneling advancements to make that possible. If all this sounds far fetch, just stop and think here we would be with out some of the existing improvements, such as the 1-205, which in just 30 years has gone to a little used freeway when it was first built to a "moving parking lot", (be it noted, I live out here and use it often.) This is exactly what the country needs right now, an infrastructure project to stimulate the economy and with a view to deal with future population growth. |
| 7674 | David | Evans | DEAR I-5 ROSE QUARTER PROJECT MANAGER, ECT. SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTIT SEEMS TO ME THAT EVERYONE THAT WORKS FOR ODOT AND, OR THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION IS SOLD ON THIS IDEA OF ADDING AT LEAST (2) TWO MORE LANES TO THE FREEWAY, FOR THIS ENDEVOUR. (FREEWAY WHICH BRINGS TRUCKS, SEMI, 10-WHEELER, OR SMALLER TRUCKS, IN, AND TOWARD DOWN TOWN- PORTLAND, OR. IN MY THINKING, WHY NOT EXSPAND YOUR "EA" THINKING, TO *INCLUDE A 2ND ROAD, *ABOVE THE * FREEWAY, THAT'S NOW A PROBLEM FOR EVERYONE THAT DRIVES ON IT. IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO REALIZE, THIS FUTURIST SUPER FREEWAY, FROM I-84, AND I-205 - LESS FENDER BENDERS, ECT. I-84 2-LANES - I-205 TO MORE LANES TOTAL 4'S THESE 4 LANES WILL TRAVEL PAST. "WILSONVILLE" lET THE TRUCKS STAY ON THE BOTTOM HIGHWAY, AS THEYRE USUALLY TO HEAVEY TO CLIMB STEEP - SHORT ENTRANCES TO HIGHER GROUND OR ROADWAYS. OF COURSE, THE TOP ROADWAY WILL HAVE TO BE CHANGED TO ALLOW CAR/P/U TRAFFIC TO ENTER AND LEAVE THIS FREEWAY, ONE WITHOUT (ANY TRUCK TRAFFIC), WHICH WILL HELP THOSE WORKING IN OR AROUND PORTLAND DOWNTOWN, ECT. TRUCKS ONLY TRUCKS ONLY TRUCKS ONLY (PAINTED IN (Y) + (RED) PAINT, AND (REFLECTIVEDR EvansTHANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY |
| 7675 | Ed | Buck | I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement and Tolling CommentaryI-5 and 1-405I-5 through Portland has been inadequate since it was built. The City and State have wasted countless amounts of money on studies to bury the freeway through Portland and replace it with a fairyland for goat yoga parties and Om circles, but few dollars and sense have been expended on adding lanes that are long overdue. From old timers' information at ODOT, Oregon diverted dollars from the original I-5 construction project through North Portland to other uses. We suffer to this day with only three instead of originally planned for four lanes. Oregon built the marginal Marquam Bridge and made a decision to kill the Mount Hood Freeway in favor of MAX. MAX was a good idea, but funding highway expansion to handle population increases should also have been a no-brainer all along. The City of Portland Since the 1970s, the City's population has grown from under 400,000 to over 660,000 with no infrastructure improvements. Since 1973, the regional population has more than doubled to over 2.2 million and the outdated set of highways with an inadequate number of lanes remains stuck in the past. ODOT has not really built much of anything around metro Portland since 1973 with I-405 and the Fremont Bridge. Clearing crashes across Portland is much slower than it should be as is clearing brush and trees from western Oregon's highways. Portland is anti-business and has been mismanaged for decades with Tear Gas Teddy presiding over riots, exploding homelessness and an ever declining national reputation. The City has for decades diverted road maintenance dollars to other uses. Compared with other major metropolitan areas in the US such as Austin or San Antonio, Portland has a quaint set of two lane freeways running through downtown Portland. Pathetically inadequate is another descriptive. The time and delays of Portland's increasing gridlock cost add staggering business and personal costs. Thanks again ODOT and thanks to small minded politicians. Portlanders say they don't want to be "Los Angeles", but that region has a good network with options that keep 12 million people and business moving. CalTrans adds lanes, maximizes the freeway footprints or uses eminent domain to get people and commerce moving. METRO PORTLAND AND THE STATE OF OREGON Portland's reputation has tanked and the State has a reputation for bait and switch permitting nonsense. The 2017 transportation bill was inadequate for the needs and the gasoline tax should go way up to pay for roads and bridges, but it won't thanks to spineless leadership of Legislatures and Governors who cannot govern. 217 widening is decades overdue, 1-205 has room for at least four lanes, Highway 26 has room for four lanes in each direction past Cedar Hills and there will sadly be no Westside Bypass thanks to poor planning, a lack of funding, small minds and dithering. With infrastructure stuck in the 1960s/1970s and with small minded folk in charge, traffic gets worse and costs more for business and regular people. That is also driving business away as they see the lack of infrastructure investments. Attracting business to Oregon has become a challenge and not just because of a decaying downtown Portland and environmental permitting nonsense. Professional firms look at travel times through the metro area and have decided to locate in Vancouver or further north in WA instead of Oregon. The State suffers to this day from a lack of infrastructure across the region and down to Eugene with figurative two lane "gridlock" running south of Salem. We have DunningKruger afflicted folks running ODOT and Oregon's governments. With exceptions going back 50 years, the State has had a parade of inept Governors with Kate Brown being the worst I have ever seen. Tina Kotek is Kate Brown 2.0, smug, arrogant, power hungry and pretends to listen. I worked with her for years in the Legislature. The dysfunction in Salem will continue. Ms. Drazan came close this time and Betsy Johnson was simply the best candidate who knew more than the other two combined and would have kick started the State, but we now have no political relief in sight. Then we have idiots like Joe Cortwright, who once suggested Portland traffic volumes would somehow drop, who continues to be quoted by gooey eyed reporters, who spews nonsensical drivel about traffic and "no more freeways". Oh wait, he's an economist and gets his furniture and groceries are delivered by rail to his house. Yes, and he can paint my house as well. THE NEW I-5 BRIDGE The I-5 replacement bridge is a predictable fiasco with at least four or five lanes of traffic needed to cross the river. You do realize that Portland is a bottleneck for Oregon and the entire West Coast don't you? The air draft was an issue eight years ago and is again an issue. ODOT and WSDOT will build a bridge to last a century and undermine future choices for water borne transportation by relying on the cooked choice that is too low. Sadly, it appears we will have three lanes in the already cooked bridge design constrained by width and height...and again with a short sighted payoff to upriver businesses. A bridge with good air draft and four or five lanes meant a longer approach and the exposure of poor planning on the part of the State, Metro and the City of Portland. Three lanes with MAX and a wide dumb ass bicycle lane? Gee, how many bicycles cross the bridge on a given rainy day and is it worth X millions to compromise with self righteous granola chomping bicycle advocating chimpanzees? TOLLING Electronic tolling is already on the way and it will force spillover traffic on to clogged side streets for those avoiding tolls. The reasons for tolling include a failure on the part of the Legislature to adequately raise the gasoline tax or to adequately raise registration fees for electric vehicles. Tolling is unfair for lower income people. In other cities, anecdotes suggest some remove their license plates (or use stolen plates) to avoid ridiculous tolls. People will howl and complain, but we know tolling has already been decided. At a minimum, the funds generated will not go to more lanes and the infrastructure dysfunction will continue aided and abetted by environmental weasels. THE ROSE QUARTER The weirdo culture of ODOT does not really want to build anything other than reader board signs and maybe an on ramp redesign or two. Then there is the Newberg Bypass mess. We now face an overpriced set of bad choices with the carrot of a lane or two through the Rose Quarter. We need to build four new lanes to ease the flow of traffic, but that won't happen. The Rose Quarter traffic volumes continue to climb with increased truck traffic in recent years thanks in part to the knuckle draggers of the ILWU that killed or seriously undermined container traffic at the Port of Portland. That traffic goes north/south from the ports of Seattle and Tacoma through I-5 or I-205. The proposed cover over 1-5 is a BAD idea to satisfy small minded people yelping about squishy terms such as "environmental justice", "sustainability", "equity" or "linking" the fading past to an increasingly smaller black community in North Portland. That cover will be a ridiculous reminder of stupid decision making and a colossal waste of money. Politically correct imbeciles in Portland and Salem will force all this horse manure on the taxpayers with little or darn near nothing to show for it. I am disgusted by the leadership of Oregon and Washington, their toadying up to environmental idiots, the politically correct folk and the failure to address basic infrastructure improvements to keep freight and people moving. Go ahead, build the freeway cover nonsense and the alleged 1.8 miles of extra lanes. Why use critical thought or common sense when warm, fuzzy and wasted money will do?!! It's Oregon! Ed Buck |
| 7677 | Rep Khan | Pham | Email Date : 1/4/2023 11:42:10 PM (US Pacific) To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment Period Dear ODOT and Rose Quarter project team, Please find my public comment letter attached. Thank you! Khanh ----- State Rep Khanh Pham (she/they) House District 46 (SE Portland) Email: Rep.KhanhPham@oregonlegislature.gov Website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/pham Dear ODOT and I-5 Rose Quarter Project Team, As the State Representative for Oregon House District 46 (outer Southeast Portland), my constituents talk to me every day about their concerns about traffic safety, congestion, and the spiraling climate crisis. My neighborhood, boxed in by the I-205, 82nd Ave, Division, and Powell faces some of the worst air pollution and asthma rates similar to those faced by neighborhoods that live along the I-5 Rose Quarter area that have been harmed by historic displacement by the freeway, as well as pollution and redlining. This is a community that deserves extra investments in affordable housing and safer streets, but the planned Rose Quarter expansion is not going to provide funds for housing on top of the lid, and it will increase pollution and do nothing to heal the historic harms that were done to this community. I am writing to urge ODOT to conduct a Full Environmental Impact Study. I strongly support the vision for a lid over the Rose Quarter stretch of the I-5 freeway, but I am opposed to expanding freeway lanes, before we ve had a full EIS to study the pollution impacts on the surrounding neighborhood. I also strongly urge ODOT to study alternatives to freeway expansion (including congestion pricing) in its Environmental Assessment, and to study the cumulative impacts of the proposed freeway expansions across the region. As a State Representative with fiduciary responsibility to carefully steward our scarce taxpayer dollars, I have concerns about the state s ability to finance the over $9.2 Billion worth of Urban Mobility projects being proposed in the Portland metro region over the next few years. Our state, like many states, is facing a transportation funding gap which threatens to grow to $250 million/year by 2029, and $500 million/year by 2029, if we meet our state s climate goals as set forth by the Governor s executive order to reduce gasoline consumption by 40% by 2035. We can meet our mobility and access needs across the state, but we ll need to do it by spending our finite transportation dollars strategically. We cannot use the same 1960s freeway building approach to solve our 21st century transportation challenges, nor to build an equitable and accessible transportation system that will serve all Oregonians today. In this moment, my constituents and Oregonians across the state are calling on elected leaders and state agencies to align our transportation projects and funding to address the epidemic of road deaths, build a resilient and climate-friendly transportation system, and to ensure there is sufficient funding to invest in transportation needs across the state. Sincerely, Rep. Khanh Pham Oregon State Representative, House District 46 |
| 7678 | Winta | Yohannes | From: Winta Yohannes [Redacted] Sent: Thursday, January 5, 2023 7:37 AMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period Hello, Please see attached for our public comment. Thank you, Winta-- Winta Yohannes Executive Director Albina Vision Trust January 4, 2023 Megan Channell Project Director, Rose Quarter Oregon Department of Transportation 355 Capitol Street, NE, MS 11 Salem, OR, 97301-3871 RE: I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Supplemental EA Public Comment Dear Ms. Channell, On behalf of the Albina Vision Trust (AVT), thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) regarding the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project (RQIP).Throughout the country, many cities are grappling with the devastating impact of urbanfreeways that have torn through predominantly Black neighborhoods. AVT was created to counter the intentional displacement of Black people from the historic Albina neighborhooddue to urban renewal, freeway siting and long-term gentrification. AVT s business and charitable purpose is to counteract anti-Black racism in the urban form and to build adiverse, multigenerational and affordable community. The RQIP is a critical element of AVT s overall community redevelopment vision to reconnect inner east Portland neighborhoods to the Willamette River and rebuild community wealth. We appreciate the years of substantive discussions and meaningful work that have led to the proposed Hybrid 3 cover concept reflected in the SEA. The consensus reflected in thispreliminary design concept, as outlined in Governor Brown s January 2022 Letter of Agreement, meet broad community aspirations for this transportation project to be acatalyzing force for reconnecting Albina and restoring its vibrancy through thoughtful and intentional development. At this stage, however, it is clear additional technical work is necessary to meet theconditions of the agreement. It is our perspective that the promise of social justice throughurban design cannot be met without adherence to the following principles in the next stage of design: The project must continue to design for the optimal street-level experience forpedestrians and bicyclists and prioritize designing for the grid of the city at the streetlevel instead of the freeway below The design and construction of the highway covers must result in high-quality, economically feasible parcels consistent with the design, development, land use andprogramming vision articulated in the Independent Cover AssessmentThe decision-making framework for considering tradeoffs as the design progresses needs to be transparent and aligned with the recommendations of the IndependentCover Analysis A clear funding plan for delivering a complete project as defined by the Governor sLetter of Agreement needs to be articulated by the Oregon Department of Transportation The RQIP s long-term role in rebuilding stolen wealth long after the construction of the project is complete needs to be further defined, in partnership with the City of Portland, which should include community ownership of newly created land. While much work remains, we look forward to continued collaboration to ensure we meetthis generational opportunity to transform Albina. Thank you for your full consideration ofour comments. Sincerely,Winta Yohannes Executive Director, Albina Vision Trust |
| 7679 | Nate | McCoy | MR. MCCOY: Okay . Thank you for the opportunity tonight . My name is Nate McCoy, longtime Portland native, grew up on Fargo and Rodney, even brought a picture. I 'm not sure if folks can see it. We have many in the community that have been long- standing families in the Black community here in Portland. I 'm excited to be here to testify because there has been a long extensive community engagement process that NAMC finds itself supporting to make sure that the community gets what they want built on the cap. I also want to emphasize the need for additional true long-standing historic Black families to be at the table when decisions are made around how we develop, construct, and even plan out the future visions for lower Albina and the surrounding neighborhoods. One goal I would love to see is that we stand up processes and we find those in our community that maybe have not had that opportunity to engage fully in the decision-making conversations, not just the public engagement and commenting phases. So I 'm humbled to hear that there are some efforts underway to support that. I would hope we continue to have a great relationship with Portland Public Schools to ensure that we do create business and workforce economic opportunities. I think that with some of the options on the table, if those are the options that the community would like to see happen, NAMC stands ready to support you all in that effort. I applaud ODOT, for what they've done to date to get us to this point, and many Black leaders like Try Excellence and others who have contributed their time and efforts. And again, I just wanted to be here to support the movement of this project towards economics in our Black and brown communities. Thank you for the opportunity tonight, and look forward to seeing you all in the new year. |
| 7680 | Leslie | Goodlow | MS. GOODLOW: Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Leslie Goodlow. I currently work for the City of Portland Housing Bureau. I've lived in Northeast Portland for 52 years and I 'm excited to be able to give testimony tonight regarding this project. I am on the Historic Albina Advisory Board and have participated with ODOT and many others in preparation for the covers. I want to start off by saying that I support the project and the Hybrid 3 design that came out of the community-led process. We spent many months going over the pros and cons. And I think that the fact that this was a community-based group, many folks -- you know, if you add us all together, hundreds of years of living in Northeast Portland. And so very proud to sit on -- with those others. I support what Nate McCoy and NAMC from NAMC mentioned earlier. But I just want to make sure that as we're moving forward, we continue to listen to community voices, that while I understand that they're the community is encompassed by many voices, that we don't take one voice or one organization as the authority for all. And that I'd like to see ODOT and the City and the County and whoever else is at the table really focused on supporting economic development for Black and brown folks that have historically been left away from the table and not been able to participate. And thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. |
| 7681 | Andrew | Lindstrom | MR. LINDSTROM: So I would -- I 'm my name's Andrew. I live in Portland in the Brooklyn neighborhood. And I am here to give testimony about what I think are inaccurate bicycle and pedestrian level of stress scores, specifically, around the area of the Vancouver, Broadway, Weidler intersections. I've been revising the active transportation Supplemental Environmental Assessment area, and I've seen a lot of scores that I think don't match up with the ODOT guidelines for that. In particular, the current scores for the segment of -- the segment of Broadway - - sorry, the segment of Vancouver between Broadway and Weidler. I don't know how familiar everybody is with that, but it's sort of multi-lane, stressful, there's the freeway exit. That scored for bicycles, level of stress, in the current no-build situation. And I do not think that's accurate. And I just would like to call attention to that, because I think it needs to be revised before any sort of build happens. You know, this is an area that I pass through quite frequently. And I'm concerned with the lack of oversight-- or maybe not oversight, but a lack of thoroughness given to these analyses because I think that, you know, they're driving how ODOT is presenting this to the FHWA. And I just want to make sure that everything gets handled correctly, and that, you know, what I-- what I consider to be the-- like, accurate levels get reflected in that because I think that the Oregon ODOT says a level of stress, which that segment of Vancouver is, represents little stress and requires less attention is suitable for all cyclists, traffic speeds are low and there's no more than one lane in each direction. And this segment of Vancouver has, I believe, three, maybe four lanes. It's only in one direction, but thank you for the time. |
| 7682 | Jackson | Hurst | MR. HURST: Hi, my name is Jackson Hurst, and I live in Kennesaw, Georgia at I have been through the I-5 Rose Quarter area before and I completely agree that it is a huge traffic headache. I have reviewed the Supplemental Environmental Assessment for ODOT I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project and based upon the findings in the Supplemental Environmental Assessment, I fully support and approve the mitigation measures that ODOT is taking a long with the overall objective of the project, which is to improve safety, reduce congestion, and basically help reconnect the historic Albina community back together. I'm approving use of a highway cap. |
| 7683 | Josh | Hetrick | MR. HETRICK: Thanks . Yeah. Hi, this is Josh Hetrick from Portland, Oregon. And I support the lids on the freeway-- overtop of the freeway, but do not support any freeway expansion. It's not necessary to complete the building -- build the caps and to develop the land above, which is a great goal to help restore some of what was destroyed by this highway in the first place. And in fact, expanding the lanes simply makes it more difficult to build full structures that can support larger, more intense development. And the -- we've seen the cost of this project triple from the beginning. We're not done yet but expect that to continue going up. There's no reason to believe it won't. And we see that as a huge, huge opportunity cost to investing scant transportation dollars into shaving a tiny bit of commute time, but by ODOT's own admission, it won't do more -- it's a negligible difference versus the no-build scenario. And instead, in my neighborhood, we've had three pedestrian fatalities on ODOT facilities in the last 18 months alone. And we see this all over the city in ODOT controlled facilities, and yet we're spending a billion and a half dollars to -- primarily to expand the lanes in a case where there has been few serious safety issues. In fact, the only one that's occurred in the last ten years was a pedestrian on the freeway. And this change, making it wider will actually make that more dangerous and more likely to occur. So in the interest of safety, this project should be more strictly evaluated with environmental impact statements. And it should be - - go through the full process to evaluate all the options, including no build. |
| 7684 | Becky | Hawkins | MS. HAWKINS: Great. Yeah, thank you. my name is Becky Hawkins and I've been a full-time bike commuter in Portland for ten years. In a single week, my job might take me as far northeast as the airport down to Foster-Powell into downtown Woodstock, the Pearl. So I've also had an office job that was right near Providence Park where everybody's entire day revolved around getting out of there before the game was over on a game day. So I feel like I have a lot of experience to bring to the table in terms of bikeability. And the most recent plan I saw, did not look like it would work for cyclists. I have concerns at the same intersection as Mr. Lindstrom brought up, on a couple of levels. If you just have a tiny -- it looked like a pedestrian islands between the southbound on-ramp and the southbound off-ramp, you're not planning to have a lot of cyclists there. So you're not planning for more -- for, you know, active transportation to grow in that area. You're just leaving people kind of packed on to a little tiny space in between two areas where people are driving fast. I also drive, so I know that kind of reformatting your brain between highway driving and city driving takes some adjustments. And so just having to cross an off-ramp, which I've had to do in -- with ODOT bike lanes in a couple of other places like Northeast Killingsworth and on a couple of trails and it's terrifying. And I -- we keep hearing, like, oh, cyclists take their lives into their hands whenever they do X, Y, Z but, like, we're just trying to get where we're going and the road design often makes it feel that way. That -- well, you might die and get blamed for your death. The other thing about the bike lane that crosses the on-ramp and off-ramp, it's going uphill. An inexperienced cyclist could misjudge how long it takes to get up hill and somebody's coming off of a highway, they're not expecting somebody. I just don't want more people to die because someone made an oopsie. Thank you. |
| 7686 | Daniel | Fuller | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The construction of I-5 through Portland was a historic injustice that destroyed homes, businesses, and communities. Expanding it will do nothing to remedy this injustice, and will in fact compound it. Urban freeways and the suburban sprawl they enable are an active force for fiscal, social, and climate breakdown. Instead of throwing away billions of dollars to further entrench car dependency, ODOT should follow its own guidelines to bring the metro area's "orphan highways" up to modern standards of safety and mobility access for walking, bicycling, and transit. The I-5 freeway through Portland should be torn down and the right-of-way converted into parkland and functional local streets. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 6:32 pm |
| 7687 | Christine | Hoerner | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This freeway expansion through the Rose Quarter will impact so many people negatively right now and it will be even worse for future generations. A full environmental impact study absolutely must be done because if the truth is revealed this project will not be able to move forward as planned. Instead of expanding freeway services ODOT should be investing in interstate mass transit trains that travel directly down the I-5 corridor with bus transit hubs that spoke outward to destinations. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 6:32 pm |
| 7688 | Sarah | Deumling | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I am in favor of doing anything that will prevent, or even slow down, the expansion of roadways. We so urgently need to reduce our driving (VMTs), not encourage more more, easier driving. I really want a livable Oregon (and planet) for my grandchildren. PLEASE think long term, please do not expand roadways. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:09 pmSincerely,Sarah Deumling |
| 7689 | Armando | Luna | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I beleive an Environmental Impact Statement would discover that the cost of expanding I5 is just too great for the "benefit". ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:23 pm |
| 7691 | Mykle | Hansen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This is a massive project whether measured in time, money or its impact on the communities it runs through. Its goal of freeway expansion is contrary to the climate and safety goals of the city of Portland, the state of Oregon, and the urgent needs of the global environment. It could shift the pattern of gridlock on I-5, but the vast majority of evidence from the last 60+ years of interstate highway expansions in the USA strongly indicates that freeway expansions increase traffic, fossil fuel consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. There is no more significantly impactful environmental decision we can make than whether to encourage or discourage freeway use. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:27 pm |
| 7692 | Alon | Raab | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Hello,As a Portland resident for many years and as a person concerned about climate catastrophe and the many disasters it is already unleashing I urge you to conduct an EIS right now. This is the least you can do if you are to maintain any shred of your claim to care about those impacted by the proposed free expansion. It is the right thing to do.Thank you, Alon Raab ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:29 pm |
| 7693 | Meghan | Keys | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand you conduct an environmental impact for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion as it will impact so many lives and traffic patterns. Living and working in the area will grow so challenging for the people who ACTUALLY live here!!!!!! Please do not do this without listening to your community! ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:38 pm |
| 7694 | Rufus | Knapp | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I have no confidence in the agency. Only a full public exposition of the details of the project and possible impacts is acceptable. This must include an evaluation of the impact of the expansion's impact on region wide carbon emissions. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:54 pm |
| 7695 | Adam | Foltzer | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: In a time of rapidly increasing climate crisis, we must be absolutely certain that any major infrastructure efforts do not make our environmental problems worse. ODOT cannot be trusted without a full accounting of the potential impacts of their proposal, as well as an honest look at benefits of alternatives. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 7:56 pm |
| 7696 | Walt | Hollands | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: This is an expensive and environmentally disastrous boondoggle. That requires an EIS. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:04 pm |
| 7697 | Norma | Gaines | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As the city and state have implemented many obstacles for private citizens, (the taxpayers), that are meant to protect the environment , it seems hypocritical for ODOT to just be given a green light on expanding the freeway. If the tax per wants to remodel or build, we are required to follow environmental standards and so should ODOT. I must also add that the state and city of Portland continue to assassinate the integrity of the historically black neighborhoods. The city of Portland condemned my family s property across from Harriett Tubman school with an offering of fair market value under the imminent domain rule years ago, as many others were bullied in the community. And it is commonly know that these type of injustices occurred in the African American community, and it still continues. The displacement of our children and communities need to end. Invest in preserving the integrity of our neighborhoods who are the taxpayers. Our community can never be properly compensated for the land government agencies have taken. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:10 pm |
| 7698 | Marissa | Anderson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: As a homeowner on Naito, the Better Naito project that expanded pedestrian and bike access while slightly reducing car lanes is a BIG WIN. We need more of this. Please do an environmental survey on the rose quarter freeway expansion and make sure that environmental, humane, sustainable concerns are top priority in making improvements to the freeway. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:21 pm |
| 7699 | Megan | N | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Please conduct an EIS for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Our youth s future depends on it the expansion guarantees worse air quality and we want to know the actual impact on the health and well being of our kids. We need to know the truth and your inaction do conduct the statement leaves us in the dark. What are you hiding? ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:26 pm |
| 7700 | Dalton | Humann | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Environment Impact Statements are a baseline, not an option. ODOT has willingly ignored community members and exacerbated issues they've created. I hope to see actionable responses to community needs and desires with real partnerships with non-profits like Albina Vision. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:32 pm |
| 7701 | Jordan | Crane | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Over the past few years we ve begun to see the climate change affect the quality of the air we breathe in Portland. Adding more lanes to the freeway and thus further encouraging travel by car will only make the situation worse. While I am in favor of the proposed Hybrid 3 freeway caps, I cannot support the addition of more lanes to the freeway, even as a car owner. I would like a full EIS to be conducted for the project, so we can ensure the solution we choose is the right one, and that all alternatives have been considered. ODOT has lied repeatedly about the scope of this project, and I don t trust them to make a decision that is best for the city without an EIS being conducted. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:44 pm |
| 7702 | Georgia | McAlister | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: It is utterly irresponsible to move forward with a project of this size knowing the impact it will have on the surrounding community environment without a full analysis and transparency that an EIS provides. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 8:45 pm |
| 7703 | Drew | Williamson | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: We have limited funding to accomplish local and regional priorities. This project is the definition of misguided and over-engineered. The mess of the new off and on ramps will do next to nothing to alleviate the existing congestion. We could do so much more with this amount of money from the state, rather than wasting it on dubious freeway enhancements, safety improvements, or whatever other non expansion term one wishes to use. It s an expansion, like it or not, but this time it s being social justice-washed, as if the massive expenditures for the lids could ever restore the Albina neighborhood. It s a neat idea in theory, but the benefits are far exceeded by the cost. Social housing and establishing affordable, super frequent transit would be a better use of the funds, and with a little vision, this could be achieved. ODOT and our status quo state level democrat politicians are forcing this environmental disaster upon us without even considering allocating the money for dedicated rapid bus lanes throughout the city. In tandem with the Interstate Bridge Replacement project, Oregon, once respected as an environmental leader, will surrender its last bit of reputation for being ostensibly progressive. Once upon a time, Oregon considered alternatives to freeways without having to. Here we are, in 2022, climate crisis raging, and I can t even believe this is a discussion. Stop this expansion. Do not do it. Allocate the money elsewhere. Imagine what could be achieved to make this a far more livable city for ALL for the upwards in $5 billion we are set to spend on freeway expansions, er, enhancements. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:59 pm |
| 7704 | Scott | Lieuallen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A full EIS would probably show what a serious mistake the Rose Quarter project really is. Freeway expansion projects all all across the country have failed to relieve congestion, leaving the country out many billions of dollars with no benefit. ODOT's magical thinking leads them to believe the Rose Quarter project will be the lone exception.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 10:17 pm |
| 7705 | Teressa | Barsotti | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I don t believe that ODOT should build additional lanes through the Rose Quarter. I think we need to study the impacts of this proposed expansion compared to an expansion of rapid transit services and improved active transportation routes. I d also like to see projections of what tolling or congestion pricing could due to reduce motor vehicle traffic.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 10:33 pm |
| 7706 | Audrey | McNamara | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: The citizens of Portland are entitled to know the full environmental impact of expanding the freeway at the Rose quarter. Providing lids over the highway to allow for better pedestrian experiences and additional space for housing. Expanding freeways to add additional lanes is proven to not alleviate congestion, time and time again. It's called induced demand, if you build it they will come. Congestion pricing is the only way to pay for a highway remodel that demands climate justice for the current and former Albina residents. Priority needs to given to people and the climate and not single use vehicles. The current and future students of Harriet Tubman middle school do not deserve to endure years of poor air quality due to increased car and truck traffic. If we actually aspire to vision zero and tackling climate change, expanding the highway is not moving us in that direction. How many more times do I have to hit by cars while cycling in bike lanes before we have streets that safe for all?________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:05 pm |
| 7707 | Diego | Garibay | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I demand that ODOT do so due to the major negative implications any form of freeway expansion poses for people. Whether it be issues such as induced demand worsening traffic, the major expenses that could be used to maintain and modernize roads for a much more walkable, equitable, safe, and environmentally friendly future, or the way in which this only further feeds into the cyclical and damaging environmental drawbacks car-centric infrastructure poses, all of these are more than valid enough reasons for ODOT to end their negligence on the issue and be honest of what their projects lead to.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:32 pm |
| 7708 | Patrick | Rafferty | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: A full EIS should be conducted and as well as a study on the effects of congestion pricing. I'll also go a step further and say rather than expand I-5, ODOT should rip out I-5 south of the Fremont Bridge. That would be truly restorative.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:48 pm |
| 7709 | Julie | Allen | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I live in Eliot and want this neighborhood to the safe, healthy, thriving community it is trying to be. Spending over a billion dollars on an unnecessary freeway expansion through the heart of inner N/NE Portland without ODOT doing its full responsibility in assessing for Environmental Impact is a huge error. If this project goes forward without earning trust from the community, it s going to be a huge blow to the people and businesses trying to thrive here. The impact to the Harriet Tubman School and students is awful to consider - the existing highway is a droning, polluting nuisance that shouldn t be so close to the school and neighborhood. Do the right thing and complete a full environmental impact study. Use the highway caps to reduce noise and pollution.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:51 pm |
| 7710 | Melissa | Kostelecky | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: Our country's longstanding policy of splitting neighborhoods in two with freeways has had disastrous results for the people living near them, as well as for Portland's air quality and the climate. It is now known (and an EIS will show) that those living, working and studying near a freeway suffer the long-term health consequences of higher NO2, NOx, CO, SO2, ozone and particulate matter. Widening lanes also only serves to induce the demand for more driving, which is wreaking havoc on our climate in the form of higher CO2 levels as driving is incentivized and other, cleaner forms of transportation are squeezed out. It is far too high a price to pay for the mere convenience of moving a few minutes faster through the city in a private vehicle, a convenience that is also temporary at best. My family and I just returned from a trip to Europe and noticed that not only do countries there not have freeways cutting through the middle of their major cities, but transportation also moves faster as other modes are supported and driving is far from the only reasonable option. A train or bus-rapid transit system would serve our city far better (and relieve congestion more effectively) than widening the freeway would, and all for a much lower price tag. I strongly urge ODOT to look beyond freeway widening and instead work with PBOT and Metro be a model for better, faster, more efficient transportation nationwide. No more lane additions, no more widening of freeways. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:51 pm |
| 7711 | Dr. Christopher | Hale | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: I m an ER doctor who who trained at OHSU, and has worked in Oregon and the Portland area since graduating from my residency. I m therefore very conscious of the heath and safety aspects of changes to our community. It s with this experience that I strongly encourage you NOT to move ahead with the planned expansion of I-5 near the Rose Quarter.The reasons for this are numerous. The most straight forward of these is simply that it won t work to relieve congestion. Due to the well known phenomenon of induced demand, any change in congestion will be brief, before the increased flow of traffic encourages more people to drive during their commutes, and the new lanes become just as crowded as the prior lanes.A prime example of this is the highway in Katy, Texas. Their department of transportation repeated expanded their highway until it was 23 lanes wide! And yet, traffic still comes to a standstill, because every lane expansion is met with more people driving as a result. You can read more about that here:https://cityobservatory.org/reducing-congestion-katy-didnt/Look at the photos of this massive highway in Katy, Texas, still clogged with cars. We do NOT want to turn Portland into Katy, Texas. The increased lanes will also have extremely detrimental effects on heath for the people living nearby. Take it from me as a doctor, it is well known that proximity to highways result in higher rates of air pollution, leading to higher rates of respiratory illness, and lifelong diseases including cancer. This expansion would be taking place in a marginalized community that is already negatively impacted by its proximity to the highway, a historic embarrassment and a stain on Oregon s history from a social justice lens. I fully support the plant to cap the highway to reconnect the Albina neighborhood, but that does NOT need to include the lane expansion. Further, the proposed lane expansion will lead to increased risk to pedestrians and bicyclists. It WILL lead directly to more people dying. As an ER doctor, I have seen MANY times the impact of vehicles on unprotected bodies. It is DEVASTATING! Having more vehicles, driving at higher speeds on and off the highway, will lead to more injuries, permanent disabilities, and lives lost. The lane expansion will also threaten Portland s goals of reducing carbon emissions, at a critical time in the fight against climate change, when we can t afford a single misstep. We need to focus this huge cost into infrastructure for public transit, bicycling, and pedestrian infrastructure. More lanes, encouraging more driving, is NOT sustainable. Combatting climate change, and doing so in a racially equitable way, is the challenge our our collective lifetimes. Our family has taken up the fight, and committed to doing what is necessary. We bike our kids to and from school, and I exclusively bike to and from work. I fear this lane expansion puts the lives of my children at risk, due to the risk of increased pollution, the risk of being killed by a driver as we travel on inadequate bicycle infrastructure, and due to the risk of exacerbating climate change.It s critical that an EIS be conducted, and that the I5 lane expansion at the Rose Quarter not take place. Dr. Christopher Hale________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 11:57 pm |
| 7712 | Jonathan | Hinkle | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: For a project so expensive and for one expected to remain in place for a very long time, it's appalling that the agency in charge is apparently unwilling to do due diligence to figure out what negative effects this project might have. It's just absolutely unhinged that we're planning to spend this money on an *actively harmful* project. We could spend literally no money and do no harm, yet ODOT is hankering to spend a truly massive sum to cause active harm. Mindboggling. This project will not relieve congestion long-term. More traffic will quickly arrive to use the new capacity. That's just how roads work. Frankly, it's embarrassing that ODOT doesn't understand this. If ODOT is trying to to make informed decisions, surely ODOT would look at examples of other transportation authorities trying to fix traffic by adding lanes, see that it has never worked, and actually learn from others' earlier mistakes. (*Is* ODOT trying to make informed decisions? The reluctance to do an EIS suggests otherwise.) Even if this project *would* completely solve the congestion problem on the interstate in this area, the negative safety effects of this project should trump that. Why should *my* safety be risked so that someone who doesn't even live in Portland can get to their job two minutes faster? Are we saying that all those two minutes saved add up to something worth more than the decades that this project could easily rip away from someone when tragedy strikes? I live a few blocks away from the project, at [Redacted]. I don't drive, which means I'm frequently navigating the area this project affects on foot and by bike. The intersection of Wheeler, Ramsay, Williams, and I-5 southbound on-ramp immediately north of the Moda Center is already scary both on foot and by bike; it's truly horrible to imagine how much worse it will be with the addition of a new I-5 off-ramp. Places where interstates (and other higher-speed roads) empty traffic onto local streets always have some of the scariest driving accustomed to the highway, they're driving at faster speeds, braking harder, accelerating quicker, and are less likely to be paying attention to non-car traffic like bikes and pedestrians. This project *will* make it more dangerous for those of us navigating the area without a car. Williams and Wheeler are not just roads with a bike lane. They are currently a *major* bike thoroughfare, the most direct way of reaching inner Northeast and North Portland from the central city. Any damage done to the safety of this route for cyclists is a major hit to Portland's bike network. It would truly be only a matter of time before a cyclist would be killed by a highway-aggressive driver coming off this new exit. If fixing congestion is the goal, why not just do congestion pricing? It's fair, it's cheaper than this misguided project, it wouldn't kill anybody, and it wouldn't risk worsening our emissions. Win-win-win-win, all around. I'm really tired of this. Why am I having to hound bureaucrats to do their job diligently? Please just do an EIS.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:36 pm |
| 7713 | Christine | Manning | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: ODOT, I am opposed to the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. I will not vote for anyone who is in support of this project. This project is not the solution.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:12 pm |
| 7714 | Dave | King | Message - Why do you demand that ODOT conduct an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion?: we need less cars on the roads. That's why the new apartments are not having parking. Lets be consistent.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:06 pm |
| 7715 | Stone | Doggett | The Rose Quarter project currently proposed by ODOT has no demonstrably clear benefit to Oregon and federal tax payers, but does have substantial costs and will likely cause harm. Increasing vehicle miles traveled, expanding the physical space of the highway and encroaching further on the East bank of the Willamette river will increase pollution, disrupt the lives of Portlanders with more single occupancy vehicle traffic and overall will cause more harm. ODOT has not sufficiently evaluated implementation of alternative strategies for congestion relief such as congestion pricing prior to freeway expansion.The complete extent of this harm is unknown because ODOT has refused to conduct an adequate environmental impact study for this project. It is essential that ODOT conduct an adequate environmental impact study to align with our current understanding of climate change and instability. If this project is truly intended to meet its stated goals, and is not primarily a DOT reflexively seeking out massive federal and state funds without stewardship or conscience, a full assessment of risks must be conducted. |
| 7718 | Juliet | Stumpf | ODOT must undertake a full environmental impact statement. An EIS is critical for assessing how adding additional freeway lanes will affect our kids' air quality and the quality of the climate they will inherit. We need the transparency and data-driven decision making that an environmental impact statement provides. We are out of time: we need to reduce climate-changing emissions now. ________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:35 pm |
| 7719 | Adam | Zucker | Quite frankly I was very surprised to learn years ago that ODOT was only preparing an EA for the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion Project. As an environmental consultant, who has prepared technical analysis for other EAs and EISs, I found it mind boggling that this project was moving forward without an EIS. Certainly, a project of this scale and magnitude; A $1.5 Billion project that will mostly serve single occupant vehicles will surely have a significant effect on the environment. While the notion of the lids are a good start towards providing some environmental justice, the proposed SB, jug-handle exit in the heart of the district is a dangerous and quixotic design that completely negates the ODOT s goal of safety and the City s goal to make this district more walkable. Furthermore, wouldn't the project be better served by understanding the effects of tolling first? Maybe this would reduce the need to for such a wide freeway expansion and would result in either less expensive freeway lids or lids that could support taller development or both. This project represents an enormous expenditure of our state s treasure, the least ODOT could do is to double check their assumptions and analysis through a more rigorous EIS process.________________________________________Time: January 4, 2023 at 9:38 pm |
| 7733 | Becky | Hawkins | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:03:41 PM (US Pacific)Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period To the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project:ODOT needs to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that examines alternatives to freeway widening. There's no reason that highway covers, bike lanes, and other repairs to the Albina neighborhood need a freeway widening project and a $1.4 billion price tag attached. In order to keep our climate livable, we need people to make more trips by bicycle and transit and fewer trips by car. We can't afford to prioritize moving cars along I-5 as quickly as possible, which is the stated purpose of the "auxiliary lanes" and shoulders. This project serves to benefit people traveling from outside of Portland, and creates congestion and pollution for people who live here. Because of induced demand, the project will not even reduce congestion in the long term, but the added pollution in Albina will continue.ODOT calls this proposed freeway expansion a safety investment, but this stretch of I-5 hasn't seen a fatality in a decade. The estimated cost of this project has almost tripled since 2017. ODOT owns numerous dangerous arterials in the area, including TV Highway, Barbur Boulevard, Powell Boulevard, and McLoughlin. How many Oregonians' lives could be saved if ODOT spent $1.4 billion on safety measures on these roads? How much could we mitigate pollution in the area if that money went toward funding mass transit and active transportation? I'm sure you're getting a lot of letters about induced demand and climate goals, so I want to focus on the Hybrid 3 placement of the I-5 southbound off-ramp. I attended the Supplemental Environmental Assessment virtual public hearing on December 14, and about half the speakers (including myself) were cyclists who are specifically concerned about safety at the proposed southbound off-ramp. I commuted by bicycle near Providence Park for about 10 years, so I'm familiar with biking near a freeway entrance on streets that get inundated with game-day traffic. I've seen rush hour drivers speed, ignore "No Turn on Red" signs, and run red lights to get to the 405 faster. Bringing this experience to the table, I feel comfortable saying that the Hybrid 3 design is more dangerous for cyclists. The proposed southbound off-ramp will discourage cycling and eventually injure or kill people.Here are a few scenarios that come to mind when I look at the plans:1. In Fig 3-9 of the SEA, the island between the on-ramp and off-ramp doesn't look big enough to hold more than a few cyclists. If we get an increase in cycling in the area (in line with our climate goals), cyclists approaching this intersection will have to judge whether they have time to cross two or four traffic lanes while going uphill, AND whether there will be space on the island for them. If there isn't space, they're stranded in the middle of the on-ramp between impatient drivers and a freeway. 2. A lot of the drivers in the southbound off-ramp will be heading to the Moda center. That means a lot of them will be in a hurry and unfamiliar with the roads. The off-ramp is a very tight turn where you need to slow down from highway-speed to 25mph or a full stop, depending on the traffic light. They don't have a good view of the intersection because of the hill and the highway cap. Consider that southbound cars will sometimes speed or misjudge the turn. A speeding southbound car could easily plow into the pedestrian island. 3. An inexperienced cyclist might misjudge how long it takes to bike uphill across the freeway exit. While they're pedaling across the off-ramp, their light turns red. A driver on the southbound off ramp is making a tight uphill turn, and they see the green light before they see a cyclist in the intersection. The driver may have to decide between hitting a cyclist and getting rear-ended by the car behind them. 4. I'm also concerned about having two right-turn lanes from N Williams onto NE Weidler (page 25, 2.2.2.6 of the SEA). People turn right on red all the time, even if a sign says not to. This design is just setting up a driver in the right-hand turn lane to hit a cyclist who was blocked from view by an SUV in the other turn lane.This intersection will discourage hesitant cyclists at a time when we need to encourage more cycling. In order to meet our climate goals, we need to create bike lanes with inexperienced cyclists in mind. If there are 4.9 miles of bike lanes and one hazardous intersection between home and work, there are 0 usable miles of bike lane for most commuters. Putting the off-ramp across this bike lane will reduce the number of cyclists on N Williams, the Eastbank Esplanade, and other connecting bike lanes throughout the city. This creates a negative feedback loop where bike lanes aren't being used, so better bike infrastructure isn't built, so more people will drive, adding to the number of car trips in the city, increasing congestion and pollution.I hope you will take these comments into consideration.Thank you, Becky-- Becky Hawkins [Redacted] |
| 7734 | Lisa | Caballeno | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... ODOT has not been transparent or forthcoming about the true impact of this freeway expansion. They have not considered the effects of tolling or congestion pricing, and whether those policies would be a less expensive a more environmentally wise way of solving traffic flow issues. Sincerely, Lisa Caballeno |
| 7735 | Zach | Aldim | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... it only presses the accelerator, speeding up our nation, and world, towards the climate crisis. If you truly value climate accountability, you will push for a full EIS that is unbiased. Freeway expansions are known to always increase VMT. Stop claiming this freeway expansion will reduce emissions, it is an outright lie. From Zach Aldim |
| 7736 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... Portland is not in a "highway shortage" crisis. We ARE in... * a housing crisis * an environmental crisis * a racial equity crisis * an identity crisis Let's use that square footage, that money, and that time investment towards resolving the real issues at hand. | |
| 7737 | Claire | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... by ODOT's own admission, this project will worsen safety for everyone: drivers, bikers, and pedestrians. We deserve safe streets. Claire | |
| 7738 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... IT WILL DESTRY OUR LOCAL ENVIRONMENT AND OUR GLOBAL WELL-BEING. IF ODOT'S STATEMENTS ON RECUCED CONGESTION + SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT ARE TRUE, THEN THE ASSESSMENT WILL SHOW THAT. ODOT'S RELUCTACE TO CONDUCT THE STUDY ONLY PROVES THEIR WILLINGNESS TO DESTROY OUR ENVIRONMENT... ACTUALLY, IT SEEMS THAT EVERY CLAIM ODOT HAS MADE IS ROOTED IN LOGICAL FALLACY. FOR EXAMPLE, ODOT CLAIMS THE PROJECT WILL "SMOOTH TRAFFIC" BUT THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SINGLE HIGHWAY WIDENING PROJECT WHICH REDUCED CONGESTION LONG TERM. IF YOU DON'T KNOW THIS, PLEASE GOOGLE IT... AND IF YOU DO, WHY CONTINUE? | |
| 7739 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... I believe a project of this size needs to have the proper process and scientific evidence to proceed. ODOT is short-circuiting true discovery around the impact of this project on carbon emissions and particulate pollution. I live in Brooklyn neighborhood, which is affected by the particulate pollution of the three major state roads surrounding us. I shudder to think of the impact of this project from not knowing how it will affect my fellow Portlanders. | |
| 7740 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... Ms. Channell ODOT has made multiple claims that the Rose Quarter Freeway expansion will reduce CO2 emissions, yet other analysis by non ODOT experts indicate CO2 emissions will increase. A full EIS is required by law for a project of this magnitude in order to fully understand the CO2 emissions. | |
| 7741 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... it will disprove your lies that the expansion won't cause pollution and other environmental harms to the Albina Neighborhood. | |
| 7742 | Jacob | Aperes | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... this project will kill people from: -pollution -climate change -pedestrian-vehicle collisions Freeway expansions are unwise. Let's do better. Thank you, Jacob Aperes |
| 7743 | Sky | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period: Handwritten postcards These postcards were written by attendees of the people's public hearing hosted by No More Freeways on 1/3/23. They will be mailed to the AECOM address but we are including them below to ensure their inclusion in the public record. Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... The pain this community has felt from the mere existence of this freeway is immeasurable. We should not be victims of the sunk cost fallacy. We must stop the cycle of harm! -Sky | |
| 7744 | David | Kirchmeir | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... WHEN HAS WIDENING A ROAD EVER DIMINISHED CONGESTION? SEE LOS ANGELES. MORE CARS = MORE CARBON. HOW MANY HEAT DOMES WILL IT TAKE? PLEASE FUND MASS TRANSIT + CYCLING. BE A LEADER DAVID KIRCHMEIR NE PORTLAND |
| 7745 | Alison | Kastner | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... It's time we stop with knee-jerk fossil fuel based solutions and start putting people and communities first. Let's be bold and come up with better solutions. The future DEPENDS ON IT. Alison Kastner |
| 7746 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... I want students at Harriet Tubman Middle School without an increased threat to air pollution to their health. | |
| 7747 | Ukiah | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... we can't make decisions w/o adequate research. -Ukiah (17) | |
| 7748 | Anonymous | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... "It is hard to get a man to understand something he is paid to not understand" Stop paying engineers to widen freeways!!! use the money to maintain what we have and start building alternative travel options | |
| 7749 | Robin | [Redacted] | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... I want to be a kid. I'm only 17, with so much of my life left to grow + learn. This freeway has + will kill people. We need life, not death! We need real equity, not performativity! I demand a full EIS. Lids NOT lanes. -Robin [Redacted], 97212 |
| 7750 | Tegan | Valo | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... I've seen firsthand through my work that alternatives to the status quo can transform our communities for the better. I work for B-Line Urban Delivery, a company focused on reducing pollution and congestion using electric freight tricycles. In 2021 along, we prevented over 500,000 lbs of CO2 from entering the atmosphere and avoided 320,000 miles of traffic that would have otherwise been driven by traditional delivery vehicles. There are better, more sustainable, safer, healthier ways to reduce congestion than building more auto-centric infrastructure. Please invest in alternatives (transit, cycling, congestion pricing, etc.) Thank you, Tegan Valo |
| 7751 | Vivek | Jeevan | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... Transportation infrastructure takes ~60% of Portland's surface area! That's too much!! Convert that space to revenue-generating businesses, housing, or growing foods. Not one more road! - certified traffic instructor in downtown Portland Vivek Jeevan |
| 7752 | Susan | Bladholm | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:06:42 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA Public Comment period: Handwritten Postcards, part 2 Dear Ms. Channell, I want to see a full EIS for the proposed $1.4 billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion because... Dear Ms. Channell - This project - your project is massive & transformative. Given the magnitude, please do an EIS to insure all impacts are considered. It's a best practice - get good information for you to make good decisions. Susan Bladholm |
| 7753 | Rich | Reese | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:35:43 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: I-5 expansion/environmental Dear ODOT, Please record my public testimony regarding the I-5 Rose Quarter expansion project. A full Environmental Impact Statement should be mandatory. Your plan to widen the freeway will increase driving, greenhouse gas emissions, and traffic on local streets. It will bring more cars and pollution even closer to Harriet Tubman Middle School and Lillis Albina Park, and to the existing and future residents, visitors, and workers of the Albina Vision neighborhood. Please build a lid over the current freeway, without widening it. Thank you for taking my testimony. Rich Reese Southeast Portland |
| 7754 | Buff | Brown | Email Date : 1/4/2023 7:41:52 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period Dear ODOT,This is a blog I wrote 3-years ago that still applies today regarding the deceptive and fully inadequate Rose Quarter EA. Portland s Climate-Denying Freeway Plans and ODOT s Public Deception Portland has been a national leader in transportation, and now it is about to become a national failure at a time of crisis. Portland will go backward, when it has the funds, the knowledge, and the wherewithal to move forward. Portland s Planning For a city known for its environmentalism, urban planning, public transportation, public involvement, and progressive politicians, Portland is about to blasphemize the Sunrise Movement [https://www.sunrisepdx.org/], the Albina Vision Plan [https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1764_001.pdf], Portland Public Schools [https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2019/12/03/27580279/portland-public-schools-to-condemn-odot-for-rushing-through-i-5-widening-plan], and its national environmental reputation. ODOT, in cooperation with Climate Governor Kate Brown, Mayor Ted Wheeler, and Metro President Lynn Peterson are about to step aside and watch ODOT jam billions of dollars of freeway-widening projects down our proverbial throats with the claim that it s good for the climate and has no effect on equity. ODOT has produced a deceitful Rose Quarter Environmental Assessment (EA) [https://www.i5rosequarter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/508_20190225_I5RQ_Draft-EA_SCREEN_508_RELINK_TAGGED.pdf] that claims this, and has a new Director willing to propagate this fully-debunked myth [https://cityobservatory.org/odots-climate-lie-an-idle-theory-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions/].These projects will result as all highway expansions do in more VMT, more GHG emissions, more deaths, and less walking, biking, and transit use, while worsening social equity; exactly the opposite of what we need in this time of crisis. Old-School ODOT In my 20 years as a professional transportation planner, 5 years as INDOT s travel demand modeler, I know DOTs are a relic that are still moving white flight forward [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/car-crashes-arent-always-unavoidable/592447/] and equity backward. This legacy is baked into their engineering standards [https://transportationjusticeblog.com/2019/10/22/transportations-exclusionary-measure-v-c-volume-capacity-currently-means-vehicles-color/], the educational institutions, and their state and federal funding mechanisms. ODOT is doing what DOTs have always done building more lanes where there s congestion. Many DOTs are far more advanced [http://www.dot.state.mn.us/research/TS/2013/2013RIC02.pdf] having realized their focus on moving cars and trucks has had environmental and social consequences. But this effort by ODOT to maintain old-school policies has been especially egregious through its purposeful deception to hide and deny the truth to the public (by public servants!) which I find especially troublesome. Road-Widening Truths Transportation planners know building more car capacity causes more driving. Current and growing evidence shows the amount of miles driven (Vehicle Miles Traveled), not congestion, is the major factor in GHG emissions as well as vehicle crashes. California has mandated VMT analyses [https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Implementing-SB-743-October-2018.pdf] for their environmental analyses and condemns congestion delay as an environmental measure. Along with a plethora of evidence [https://opr.ca.gov/ceqa/updates/sb-743/index.html#keyresources], they have produced short videos [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOsLf1i_7k] explaining why congestion factors are not just inappropriate [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM3rdWOkbwA], but antithetical to GHG and crash reductions. Behavioral effects of widening a congested road: SHORT TERM: (1) some drivers who avoided the congestion by using parallel roads will use it, (2) some drivers who delayed their trip will no longer delay their trip, and (3) some drivers who skipped their trip completely will now make the trip. LONG TERM: (4) Some drivers will travel farther for trips or live farther away, and (5) some cyclist, walkers, transit users will drive; some will need to buy a car. EMPIRICALLY PROVEN RESULTS [https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.101.6.2616]:Road widening does not relieve congestion it just increases VMT.Transportation ModelingIn transportation planning, there are two major modeling tools, a macro model called a travel demand model, and a micro model called a simulation model. These are very different tools: the travel demand model looks at an entire travel region and can tell us what roads people will use, estimate each road segment s traffic volume, and produce regional VMT estimates. A travel demand model will do well at effects (1) & (2), but will underestimate (3), (4), & (5), which are considered induced travel. Simulation models look at particular road segments and how the traffic signals, lane configurations, and ramps might function to move traffic. Traffic volumes are inputs to these models, not outputs; the volumes must be acquired from a travel demand model. ODOT s Rose Quarter Environmental Assessment (EA) I have many grievances with the analyses in the EA, but one is they do not provide enough information to explain how their GHG emission numbers were calculated. Secondly, they use unorthodox methods and results from a simulation model not the travel demand model to estimate GHG emissions and crash data, which is the wrong tool. They provide a previous 2015 traffic operations analysis [https://i5rosequarter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/TOAS-Main-Report.pdf] that is literally proof of malfeasance where their speed and crash analyses assumed no change in traffic volumes on I-5 from constructing the Rose Quarter project (see p-16). Not only do we know the volumes will increase on I-5, but induced VMT will exist throughout the regional travel network, causing new GHG emissions and crashes throughout the network. The right modeling procedure, and every modeler knows this, is to run the regional travel demand model with and without the project, and the difference in VMT is the model s VMT estimate induced by the project. We can assume this is an under estimation of induced VMT, as noted previously. This new VMT must also be considered in the regional crash analysis, which their analysis does not do, and it wrongly isolates the crash analysis to a very limited geography, and to crash-types caused by emergency braking events. However, hiding in the bowels of the appendices is the [mostly] right data [https://i5rosequarter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/I5RQ_Air-Quality-Technical-Report_010819_Appendix-A.pdf] regional VMT from the travel demand model for the build (with the project) and no-build (without the project) scenarios. I say mostly because this table only reported the induced VMT in a subarea of the region, but VMT will be induced beyond this subarea. The induced VMT caused by the construction of the Rose Quarter project is not small; the growth in the subarea is 2.4% in 2040 and 2.9% in 2045, or 5,770,395 annual Vehicle Miles just in this subarea in 2045. As noted, models inevitably underestimate induced travel, and there will be additional induced VMT outside this area. Metro s 7-page EA Comment letter to ODOT [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5787678-EA-Review-Comment-Letter-040119.html] states these exact concerns (p-4, last bullet). I can only conclude that the reason ODOT did not use this information, and instead used other non-standard methods, was because they did not want the public to know of the VMT growth caused by this project nor its GHG and crash consequences. Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC)On the political side, the OTC and ODOT have worked to make these projects happen. I find it amazing how hard legislators from the rest of the state have worked to make sure freeway bottlenecks in Portland are funded notwithstanding the evidence overwhelmingly shows these widenings exacerbate congestion, GHG emissions and crashes. OTC will be the ultimate decider whether this project goes forward without a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the project breaks ground. OTC is not made of elected politicians. It is made up of appointees who unfortunately have a lesser obligation to the public. Two years ago, the legislature pulled the power of appointing the new ODOT Director from the governor and gave it to the OTC, and the OTC just hired a VMT denier [https://bikeportland.org/2019/12/05/oregon-senate-confirms-odot-director-who-believes-freeway-widening-is-a-climate-change-strategy-308458] one who believes in the alternative facts that (1) widening roads relieves congestion, and (2) widening roads is good for the climate and crash rates. The writing is on the wall [https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/12/portland-politicians-sound-alarm-over-rose-quarter-freeway-decision-days-before-scheduled-vote.html].To conclude, I am dumbfounded and heartbroken that our Portland leaders are not adamantly opposed to the Rose Quarter project. Mayor Ted Wheeler has been silent which results in support, and Metro President Lynn Peterson is in support, and our Climate Governor Kate Brown has been silent which results in support. I appreciate Commissioner Eudaly s engagement, but disappointed in her reticence. At most, I am hearing leaders recommend a full EIS, but if they have the climate and equity conscience they claim, they should be adamantly opposed to the Rose Quarter project, the 217 widening, and any project that advance driving in this time of crisis. Period. And they should be firmly lobbying for our legislature to redirect those billions of dollars to bike, walk, and transit projects only, now and forever. Their lack of noise is painful and disheartening. Buff Brown |
| 7755 | Kathleen | McConnell | Email Date : 1/4/2023 8:27:12 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov Subject: Rose Quarter project - letter from the Sabin Community Association I respectfully submit the attached letter on behalf of the Portland Sabin Community Association Land Use & Transportation Committee. Thank you for opening this project to additional comments. Happy New Year and best wishes,Kathleen Chair, Sabin LUTC January 4, 2023 VIA EMAILTo: Project Manager, I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement ProjectRe: Sabin Community Association response to I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement ProjectThe Land Use and Transportation Committee (LUTC) of the Sabin Community Association (inNE Portland) appreciated meeting with representatives from the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project on September 1st, 2021. After considering the analysis presented and related documents,the Sabin Community Association (SCA) is opposed to the freeway widening aspect of the project. Below are some of our key concerns. 1) The SCA strongly believes the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project needs to be part of a larger plan that incorporates the Interstate Bridge Replacement project. The proximity of the two projects and the strong probability that one will impact the other in terms of traffic volume would suggest they should be considered in tandem, and the SCA is concerned by the lack of a comprehensive analysis or plan. 2) According to news reports, Governor Brown said that Harriet Tubman Middle School, presently perched directly above the I-5 freeway in the middle of the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project, must be moved. However, we have yet to be told where and when the school will relocate, and who will pay for it. 3) If the proposed I-5 cover is to successfully meet the goal of creating walkable, vibrant community connections, we feel it is important that the Albina Vision Trust be integral to the project. We appreciate that an agreement was recently reached between ODOT and the Albina Vision Trust on the location and load bearing capacity of the projected cap that better aligns with the group s values of revitalizing the historically Black neighborhood that was demolished for the original construction of I-5. We also believe that a wider array of options should be considered, including the simpler and less costly alternative of capping the existing freeway in similar manner, without the widening of the roadway and cap construction that would be required by the proposed lane additions, and that a more complete and reliable accounting of the environmental impact of the various options be provided to advocates for the surrounding community and other stakeholders. 4) As representatives of our community, whose western border lies about one mile from the I-5 corridor, we feel that induced demand and its consequences, including its impact on air quality, have not been adequately considered or explained in decision making about this project. While the ODOT project team has assured us that the project will not create any induced demand, we have not found it easy to verify that claim through the analysis and information they have provided. On the contrary, a memorandum from the No More Freeways Technical Advisory Committee submitted to ODOT in April 2019 details numerous shortcomings in the assumptions, modeling methods, and range of options relied upon in ODOT s Environmental Assessment, raising serious doubts about its credibility. These shortcomings include, among others, inflated estimates of traffic in the project area andreliance on Static Trip Assignment Modeling which is known to produce distortedprojections of traffic volume, congestion benefits, and emission savings in both casesleading to potentially serious underestimation of induced demand. A 2021 study by Transportation for America (T4A) found that the U.S. spent $500 billionon highway expansion from 1993 to 2017 and saw traffic delays increase by 144%. T4Aurges cities to focus instead on reducing car traffic by investing in safer local streets thatsupport mixed modes of transportation. 5) In addition, the Environmental Assessment explicitly omits any consideration of the effects of congestion pricing, despite Governor Brown s message to ODOT on December16, 2019, as you move toward a decision on an environmental review path I would like you to include a full review of congestion pricing and how its implementation would impact the Rose Quarter, and the public testimony of its own consultants that congestion pricing alone would deliver the same congestion relief as the proposed freeway widening project. Thank you for registering the concerns of the Sabin Community Association Board. This project directly impacts our community and we ask that our comments be entered into the public record. Respectfully, Kathleen McConnell Chair, Sabin Land Use & Transportation Committeecc via email: Josh Bale, President, Sabin Community AssociationKirke Wolfe, member, Land Use & Transportation Committee Genna Golden, member, Land Use & Transportation Committee Maria Hein, member, Land Use & Transportation Committee Asher Atkinson, member, Land Use & Transportation Committee Josh Mahar, member, Land Use & Transportation Committee |
| 7756 | Suzanne | McIlnay | Email Date : 1/4/2023 9:22:44 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period We are a family of three (all over the age of 18)who own a home in the Elliot neighborhood and work + attend PPS school in the Portland metro region. We understand that ODOT has proposed additional improvements to the I-5 Rose Quarter project as a response to the Supplemental Environmental Assessment in the form of :I-5 ramp to ramp connections Highway covers Hancock crossing I-5 southbound off ramp relocation upgrades to bicycle and pedestrian facilities on the local street network near the Broadway-Weidler interchange to improve accessibility and safety. We are not in favor of any improvements focused solely on I-5 through-put as this has always been the traditional highway design criteria and has proven destructive in ignoring the value of community building as an equally valued design criteria. Climate change metrics and air quality are critical for community health but are not measurably improved by the proposed project. Improving local/ global health must be an added design criteria in 2023 in view of lessons learned from 20th century highway design projects nationwide. Prioritizing EV's, and auto-shutoff of combustion engines at stops, or volume control using tolling as both policy and incentive in the US is leading to faster drops in our transportation carbon footprint that cannot be addressed in highway design in terms of idling concerns (as shown in ODOT air quality graphs). The goal of this project cannot be "more vehicles thru" as a response to idling. The metrics of the SEA response should demonstrate future climate sustainability design criteria to the Federal review. Additional SEA data should be required to demonstrate greater measurable air quality improvements as a direct result of this use of public funds. We support the implementation of congestion pricing/equitable tolling in lieu of any I-5 travel lanes expansion. We support use of priority funding to correct some of the legacy damage to the city of Portland Albina-Elliot areas in the form of highway covers, adding Hancock crossing, and local urban design/ bike-ped improvements. We support the relocation of the I-5 off ramp to the MODA district and ramp-to-ramp lane improvements to smooth entry/exit movement in the area proposed as a community-restoring design by removing the current ramp arrival into the Broadway/Wiedler corridor. However, the cost is astounding at $1.5b. What is not evident is how the added "auxiliary" lanes will require further excavation to the affected neighborhoods. Conditions of approval must include zero-intrusion on existing properties or mitigation at the minimum rate of 2-to-one replacement of land.sidewalk design and street crossings for people walking, rolling and biking through the area - this is the number one critical component needed to erase the legacy of a vehicle dominated landscape along the i-5 corridor imposed on the Albina-Elliot neighborhoods corridor. Both the master-plan proposed in the Environmental Supplementlook and feel of the street environment and gathering spaces for people- Again the street section designs must take their cue from multimodal precedents established with the Green Loop and other PBOT design best practices including separated bike lanes and pedestrian + bike safe intersections, people+bike preference traffic signals - all which demonstrate a Vision Zero level of safety .Public open space in combination with mixed-use development is needed in the Broadway/Weidler corridor to provide people and activities not reliant on curb-cut commercial activities like gas stations and car dealerships. These designated zones would be expected in the highway covers proposed, as well as current unused/paved lots. City Block developments should consider the placement and integration of transit stops in urban design by both city+TriMet design standards, and private development requirements. maximize Disadvantaged Business Enterprise contracting opportunities, estimated at $250 million support economic opportunities that honor the local communities' needs and provide the potential for wealth creation. MBE inclusion is a requirement anytime a project uses Federal Funds. The ODOT SEA response must demonstrate how this statement is being implemented beyond minimum Federal/State requirements. Thank you! This is the next great opportunity in correcting the collateral damage of the American Highway Act and restoring American communities! Sincerely - Suzanne McIlnay and The McIlnay Family |
| 7757 | Tabitha | Boschetti | Email Date : 1/4/2023 10:15:33 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period ODOT,I believe that a full EIS is warranted for the proposed Rose Quarter I-5 project. While ODOT has made what appear to be sincere strides in bringing in broader community development concerns, at its core, the proposed project as it stands is centered on expanding highway capacity, with resultant impacts on increasing vehicle miles traveled, local and regional air pollution, and negative impacts on people using active modes.Socioeconomics Supplemental Technical ReportWhile I believe that a highway lid can hold promise for positive community development, I do not believe that ODOT's analysis on socioeconomic impacts is sufficient here to support their environmental justice claims. ODOT touts long-term benefits through community development, which I believe are well-intentioned, but where outcomes are far from guaranteed. ODOT demands credit for outcomes it cannot be held accountable to. It cites a Community Framework Agreement process for future development that would lean on "City of Portland zoning" (hardly a special offer) and promises community involvement (good, but a base-level expectation). There is no clear actor here that would meaningfully be responsible for equitable development outcomes tied to ODOT's freeway expansion aims. There are significant impediments to the positive social outcomes ODOT is suggesting. It seems unlikely that many builders will find developing on a freeway cover to be an attractive alternative to nearby surface parking lots or other sites between cost, uncertainty among lenders, and other practical concerns for engineering and construction management. Development products that have a social purpose like affordable housing or affordable commercial incubator space can require many public and private parties and funding sources that are far outside of ODOT's realm or even influence. ODOT does not appear to have proposed a meaningful methodology for accountability here. It is also common knowledge that large portions of public projects are often value-engineered out, and our region and society at large has a clear history of making and breaking promises to marginalized communities. For ODOT to offer their social equity aims to support their analysis, they must propose a stronger mechanism that would keep current and future leaders accountable, directly linking the ability to create lane miles with specific and measurable equitable community development goals.Land UseIn the "Land Use" section of the SEA, ODOT claims the SEA "complies with the City of Portland comprehensive plan." The City of Portland Comprehensive Plan Chapter 9 in fact contains numerous goals and policies that make clear that Portland intends to center active modes, reduce vehicle miles traveled, and work against climate change. ODOT should address these policies for the Revised Build specifically in order to claim consistency with local plans: How does a highway project that treats the bike and pedestrian experience at a major highway ramp as an after-thought consistent with Portland's modal policies which would otherwise call for walking to be the "most attractive" mode at this location (Policy 9.17) or improve safety (9.19)? How is a project that openly would increase VMT consistent with Policy 9.5 to reduce VMT? Certainly it is possible to fall short of some goals while being compliant on balance, but this does not seem adequately explored for the Revised Build Alternative. The land use report engages with Title 33, but does not engage with the related Comprehensive Plan policies as they apply to the Revised Build Alternative. I also find ODOT's discussion of 84 NE Weidler unconvincing and believe impacts to this use and impacts to the low-income population now housed at this location should be analyzed further. That a tiny house village has a limited lease on what is otherwise a publicly owned piece of land does not automatically conclude that the project will have no impact on this use as ODOT suggests. It is certainly possible that the lease could expire; it is also entirely possible that the lease would be continued beyond its current expiration date, or that Prosper Portland may be more likely to pursue another project serving this community in this location.SafetyThe Safety Supplemental Report shows that the Revised Build would "degrade" conditions at several locations, including a higher risk to cyclists and pedestrians. At a time when Portland is experiencing record road deaths, including a disproportionate number of lives lost on existing and legacy ODOT facilities, it is not appropriate to be sinking large sums of money into a project that moves us backwards on pedestrian safety. It is insufficient to point toward a potential menu of ways to mitigate the increased risks to pedestrians inherent in the project design, rather than building in improvements centering active and vulnerable users at this stage. ODOT should engage in a more meaningful analysis of pedestrian safety impacts and improve the design to further this aim. In Conclusion As it relates to this SEA review, ODOT should further address the environmental justice, air pollution impacts, public health, safety, and other impacts of this project through an EIS. Beyond that consideration, I encourage ODOT to really go back to recenter the goals for this project. A project that meaningfully promotes life/ safety for people on our roads, and honestly seeks restorative justice in our community, would not center adding lane miles as the primary consideration. Better outcomes are possible.-- Tabitha Boschetti |
| 7758 | John | Charles | Email Date : 1/4/2023 11:53:39 PMTo: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov Subject: SEIS comments Please enter the attached comments into the record. Thank you.John Charles |
| 7759 | Brian | Rousseau | Email Date : 1/4/2023 9:22:44 PM (US Pacific)To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period Implement tolling to fix traffic habits in portland. After the results of tolling are realized, do an honest EIS to prove the merits of your project. ODOT is an untrustworthy agency and you have a lot of work to do to rebuild our trust in your abilities. Brian RousseauSent from my iPhone |
| 7760 | Jacob | Gearhart |
Email Date : 1/4/2023 11:53:27 PM (US Pacific) To: i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov <i5RoseQuarter@odot.oregon.gov> Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period Good day, Myself and my team are happy to provide this memo document and video presentation, as an official comment on the Supplemental Environmental Assessment of the Rose Quarter Improvement Project. The memo document has been included in the attachments of this email, and both can be accessed via the links below. For questions or comments, please feel free to reply to me at my email address, [Redacted]. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to working with ODOT and others on this project. Sincerely, Jake Gearhart
MEMO Date: January 4th 2023 To: Oregon Transportation Commission From: Quincy Brown (We All Rise) & Jacob Gearhart (Sutra-Teleport) Project: Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Alternative This Memo reflects the formal public comment submitted on January 4th 2022 in response to the lack of legitimate alternative analysis from both Oregon Department of Transportation and the City of Portland for the Interstate- 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. This Memo: 1. Introduces the project context 2. Explains the current climate-based policy landscape 3. Condemns the City of Portland and ODOT on solely studying options which promote unsustainable and inequitable freeway expansion 4. Presents an alternative utilizing and centering Best Available Science, Technology and Planning Practices 5. Calls ODOT and the City of Portland to legitimately study and promote other alternatives centering innovative transportation This Memo supports the presentation submitted by Sutra-Teleport Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project Alternative Introduction and current context Since the late 1980s, Oregon s Department of Transportation (ODOT) has continued to study the improvement of the Interstate-5 Rose Quarter. This corridor is the 19th worst freight bottleneck in the county, has the top crash rate in Oregon, and is the site of one of Oregon's most extreme examples of eminent domain1. The externalities directed by freeway centered planning continue to plague the communities who work, live, pray, and play in the corridor. The area includes some of Portland's most prominent tax increment finance zones, bustling business districts, and historic neighborhoods. In 1962, this project began as a part of the national freeway building movement, cutting through the Lower Albina Neighborhood. Due to the Federal Housing Administration sanctioned racialized segregation, the area had the most significant concentration of African Americans in the state. When the project was completed it demolished more than 300 homes that were not replaced. The original bustling mainstreets lost the needed traffic generated by Portlanders utilizing Oregon Highway 99E. The massive increase in traffic on the freeway collapsed the local neighborhoods In the aftermath of freeway construction, I-5 turned the Albina neighborhood from houses and shops to a collection of car dealers, gas stations and parking lots. Humans were replaced as the dominant life form by metal boxes. 2 Since 1987, ODOT, the City of Portland, and other agencies have explored ways to address the challenges this freeway legacy project presents. In 2017, ODOT began its latest study on the area. Titling the project the Interstate- 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. This improvement project is a conjunction of the City of Portland s North/Northeast Quadrant Plan and the ODOT I-5 Broadway/ Weidler Facility Plan. Centering goals to lower crashes, decrease transportation delays, provide new multimodal connections, and provide a catalyst for near term job creation. Over the past 30 years the City of Portland, and ODOT have only studied alignment alternatives which recommend expanding the freeway right-of-way. Each time, the project has been unsuccessful and unpopular by Portlanders. Since 2017, new policies provide a new landscape on addressing the challenges in the corridor. The current improvement study does not follow these new local, state, and national policies oriented to climate mitigation and adaptation. ODOT and the City of Portland should reconsider the current project. Each entity continues to uplift climate irresponsible projects which do not lower greenhouse gas emissions, redress historical planning missteps, or provide alternatives to business as usual. ODOT and the City of Portland should utilize best available science to study alternatives which are not as historically unpopular as freeway expansion. It is both their collective duty to service the future needs of our ecological community Climate policies and a new landscape In March 2020, Governor Brown issued Executive Order 20-04 which boosted Oregon s goals to reduce GHG emissions to at least 45 percent below 1990 emissions levels by 2035 and to at least 80 percent below 1990 emissions by 2050. The Executive Order directs several state agencies, including ODOT, to take immediate actions to address climate change. The Executive Order directs ODOT to add a GHG reduction lens to project investment decisions in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program planning process, conduct a statewide needs analysis for transportation electrification charging infrastructure, and provide reporting on progress.3 Shortly After, City of Portland City Council and Mayor Ted Wheeler voted to adopt a Resolution, the Climate Emergency Declaration, that acknowledges the Portland metro area faces a human-made climate emergency and frontline communities as being the least responsible for, but most impacted by, climate change. Through the declaration, the city Amends the City s emission reduction targets to at least 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions before 2050; Requires transportation justice, where projects and policies will reduce carbon emissions while advancing racial equity; Commits the City to adopt new policies that prevent further expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure in the City, and quicken the transition to clean, renewable fuel options that are also good for air quality; Seeks to support and advance climate justice and climate action initiatives led by the community, especially Black, Indigenous and other communities of color and youth.4 Most recently the United States Department of Transportation produced its Strategic Plan. The Fiscal Year 2022-2026 U.S. The Department of Transportation Strategic Plan is a roadmap for how the agency will implement the once-in-a-generation investment to create a transportation system that works for every American. Of the 6 strategic goals, climate and sustainability was highlighted as a key goal to achieve in the 2022-2026 fiscal year. Central to this objective was to tackle the climate crisis by ensuring that transportation plays a central role in the solution as well as, substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transportation-related pollution and build more resilient and sustainable transportation systems to benefit and protect communities.5 A different outlook The Interstate-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project provides an unique opportunity to rebuild, reconnect, and redress the historical displacement caused by previous projects within the greater Portland community. It provides a further opportunity to deliver on city, state, and national climate goals to address the negative externalities that single-occupancy-vehicle road planning continues to force onto our most vulnerable communities. The project can promote environmental and social longevity of the community. It could even provide a possible revenue generating public good. Over the countless attempts to expand the freeway in the corridor, each attempt continues to fail. A review of the Climate Change Supplemental Technical Report published by ODOT in the summer of 2022 provides a complete look of the environmental challenges with the current option for the corridor. In this report ODOT studied the current options against a non-build alternative . The report found that the non-build alternative reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 1% more than the current alternative. The report concluded that the current alternative will increase the number of vehicle-miles-traveled by urban restricted vehicles at a higher rate then the non-build-alternative. By 2045, the area will see an increase and induced demand of freight vehicles required to utilize the corridor. The report further concluded that urban non-restrictive vehicles will decrease in the corridor. This decrease in demand to the freeway corridor will be felt by other urban streets around the corridor. Single-occupancy-vehicles will utilize arterials and other local connector streets to avoid the freight traffic on I-5. Without a viable option, demand will outpace any freeway expansion in the corridor.6 Although the report finds that electric vehicle adoption will reduce emissions, the increased presence of freight traffic and urban spillover will have a negative effect on the neighborhoods directly adjacent to the corridor. This increase will continue to contribute to the existing Social Determinant of Health inequities present by past efforts of racialized planning in the corridor. The Center for Disease Control CDC finds that residents living in or near areas of high pollution have negative health and social outcomes directly related to their proximity to emissions. These externalities are compounded by high industrial uses centered in proximity to neighborhoods.7 Continued freeway expansion centering increased capacity for freight vehicles will impact the health equity of residents in the area. This is compounded by planned industrial centered development by other partner agencies (Port of Portland, Oregon Metro, etc.). This new transportation demand management challenge will adversely affect the same residents ODOT and the City of Portland looks to uplift. Failing the goals set by their own declarations and orders. Furthermore, single-occupy-vehicle planning, in this fashion, does not provide an equitable way to address the bottleneck in the area. Low income communities will be some of the latest adopters of electric vehicles and will have to pay the increased penalties on not being able to make the transition. These communities also reside in areas where charging is either unavailable, or the cost of purchasing an electric vehicle is too high. Although equity continues to be a shared vision by city, state, and federal government agencies, this project does not represent an equitable distribution of the burdens related to freeway expansion. ODOT and The City are placing the burden on low income communities by forcing them to continue to utilize the freeway without providing a legitimate alternative. An alternative to realize an unique opportunity We All Rise and Sutra-Teleport recently conducted a baseline alternative analysis to the current Interstate-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. This analysis centered an alternative to freeway to address the bottleneck presented in the corridor. Specifically, An on-demand network of fully electric personal rail pods. Using the principles of high-speed rail along with some new components, Sutra-Teleport continues to innovate on the age-old convenience and cost issues presented by high-speed rail. New Sutra technology makes it possible for vehicles to switch themselves between tracks, enabling them to travel closely, autonomously and without stopping for others. Additionally, these rail pods will use 85% less energy than conventional cars of the same size, and around 31% less energy than electric cars, thanks to the simple physics of railway wheels. The system will also be free from many of the issues facing electric cars and be lower-cost, as they will not require large onboard batteries, instead drawing power from track infrastructure. Unlike transit infrastructure, it can also be used for businesses to transport goods and packages The funding for the Interstate-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project would be better used to create a comprehensive high-speed network through Portland. Low costs achieved through new tunneling technology and the Sutra-Teleport system estimates the current cost challenges of high speed rail. Additional implementation strategies would provide a connection from the Interstate-5 Rose Quarter with downtown, then building the system out on a modular basis, opening it to passengers in this fashion. This will allow the system to become useful as quickly as possible and be useful to most people. The first neighborhoods to be connected to the system will be those which are near the freeway corridors, as these will have the highest population to cost ratio. Furthermore, in order to reduce as many miles driven by car as possible, we can prioritize the installation of lines with the furthest distance such as the Salem or Troutdale connections. We are able to create an extremely low-cost installation process in large part by using existing freeway infrastructure. This specifically means utilizing left-hand shoulders among other freeway-adjacent surfaces, strategies which are also commonly used to create new express lanes in other cities. This alternative provides a climate resilient alternative to freeway expansion by giving residents and local businesses options for local transportation throughout the corridor, does not include an expanded roadway, address the climate and greenhouse gas concerns by promoting individualized public transportation, provides a better alternative to spending the estimated 1.2 billion dollars, maximizes the benefits to other parts of Portland while minimizing the burdens to the Lower Albina and surrounding neighborhoods, provides a profitable public good for ODOT and the City of Portland, and develops a national innovative model to personalized high speed rail/ rideshare. Our recommendation to the City of Portland and ODOT ODOT and the City of Portland should consider an alternative to the current option that does not expand the freeways. To address the climate emergency both state and local governments have declared, an alternative which adequately lowers greenhouse gasses, provides options other than the unsustainable and unpractical road expansion, provides innovative solutions to transportation demand management, and places Portland as a global leader in modern transportation development. Both city, state, and federal governments have the goal of increasing participation by people of color, youth, and those traditionally left out of transportation projects. Equity continues to be front and center of agency-wide goals. Our community deserves an alternative analysis that demonstrates and delivers on the shared vision our various levels of government continue to uplift. ODOT should work with the next generation to ensure a future which does not make the same mistakes of our past, but usher in a sustainable and equitable future. Our recommended alternative provides legitimate options for residents and businesses to utilize a system where private vehicle ownership is not necessary. However, transportation convenience is not lost. The system also positively incentives public transportation use without the inconvenience associated with the current system. The alternative models share the climate responsive vision each agency calls on all Portlanders to hold. 3 https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/executive orders/eo 20-04.pdf 4https://www.portland.gov/bps/climate-action/climate-emergency/news/2020/7/1/city-council-adopts-climate-emergenc 5 https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2022-04/US_DOT_FY2022-26_Strategic_Plan.pdf 6 https://www.i5rosequarter.org/pdfs/sea/tech_report_climate_change.pdf 7 https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health
Additional sources: https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Data/Pages/Traffic-Counting.aspx https://trimet.org/swcorridor/ https://www.i5rosequarter.org/pdfs/sea/tech_report_climate_change.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/energy/energy-oregon/Pages/Greenhouse-Gas-Snaps hot.aspx https://www.i5rosequarter.org/pdfs/sea/tech_report_climate_change.pdf 8 |
| 7768 | Naomi | Rubin | Email Date : 1/4/2023 6:49:32 PM (US Pacific)To Whom it May Concern, My name is Naomi Rubin and I'm a Portland resident of around 11 years. I'm writing with a public comment on the 2022 Supplemental Environmental Assessment (EA) for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. I am a bike commuter - being able to bike commute is one of the things that drew me to Portland, and it's one of the big reasons that I have stayed. I've biked nearly every week of my life in Portland, and it's helped me build career and community connections in the city (not to mention go camping). There are mountains of data supporting that adding lanes to highways does not reduce traffic. There is almost no data that shows otherwise, as a quick search will show: https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/06/21/the-science-is-clear-more-highways-equals-more-traffic-why-are-dots-still-ignoring-it /https://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/6994159/traffic-roads-induced-demandWidening the freeway will generally cause an increase in drivers and traffic. Even if it stayed the same, is that really a success worth the budget for this project? The project goals stated on page 5 of the EA include: "Enhance pedestrian and bicycle safety..." But increasing car use always yields the opposite. The more cars on the freeways and roads leading up to them, the more difficult it is for Portlanders to continue (or transition to) walking, biking, or many of the growing alternative modes of transportation like ebikes. On top of that, the relocated southbound off-ramp on section 2.2.2 ..4 of the EA is a dangerous change, moving the off-ramp right into an already busy and pivotal road for bike commuters with poor visibility for drivers. The EA states that "Improvements would be made... to accommodate traffic exiting I-5 and existing traffic movements on surface street" but it doesn't say what those are. This would almost certainly lead to drivers colliding with vulnerable pedestrians and bicyclists on Williams/Wheeler, none of whom will be expecting each-other. The result would be one more bike-route turned non-viable for me and thousands of other commuters. Families for Safe Streets, Oregon Walks, and Bike Loud all oppose this change. The project goals stated on page 5 of the EA also include: "Support...Infrastructure for healthy, safe, and vibrant communities that respects and complements adjacent neighborhoods" Yet, the assessment itself is incomplete because it doesn't include sufficient studies of alternatives like congestion pricing, which ODOT itself published could possibly lower congestion *AND* carbon emissions this year: https://nomorefreewayspdx.files.wordpress.com/2022/11/rq_rmpp_sensitivity_test_results_summary_20220721.pdf While there are are benefits to the freeway lids connecting neighborhoods (which would probably be a net gain without the freeway expansion), I cannot see any way that moving forward with the existing plans without a more thorough full Environmental Impact study is consistent with the project goals to improve safety for Harriet Tubman Middle School, Lillis Albina Park, and Legacy Emmanuel Hospital. Please listen to the many concerned residents and organizations on this matter. Thank you, Naomi Rubin she/her/hers |
| 7769 | Naomi | Fast | Dear I-5 Rose Quarter Project Manager,Please permit me to ask four questions about this project that deviate from the public's valid concerns about our air, to shine a spotlight on water: First: What effect would this project have on water temperatures of the Willamette River, which flows into the Columbia and out to sea? An immediate byproduct of motor cars is heat and a hotter environment around them, as every bicyclist who has waited at a red light next to a hot vehicle running its air conditioner can attest. We are being asked to expand a freeway into very close proximity to state-owned waterways, which are the habitat of many species of fish and marine life. For humans, these creatures have become an important source of food and livelihood (and even sport, though some species are endangered and protected; the Rose Quarter project falls into NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region Salmon & Steelhead Recovery Domain). Thus, this first question is sparked by concern about salmon. The EPA says, "Sometimes water can get too warm and have negative impacts on fish, including physiological stress, increased metabolic and cardiovascular demands, added disease risk, accelerated maturation, migration delays, and even death. [...] To ensure their spawning success, some salmonids use cold water patches, or refuges, as they make their way upstream." (https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/swimming-upstream-research-protect-salmon-habitat-columbia-river). Second question: How much vehicle tire microplastic pollution (among other toxins, the reduction of which has been an ongoing effort by the EPA's Willamette Watershed Toxics Reduction Partnership) will be deposited into the Willamette and other ocean-destined waterways as a direct result of this project, both if induced demand occurs, and if induced demand does not occur (in the instance, for example, that bus transportation is improved in the state, and people become widely aware of it and adept at using buses)? Third: the cost of this project to Oregon taxpayers, from Portland to Klamath Falls to Ontario in Malheur County to Astoria, is substantial to the point of exorbitancy. In the interest of ensuring this freeway will never "need" to be redone or expanded, yet again, it seems important that it'd last. So to that, how does climate change, and thus changing ocean levels and tides, threaten the success of this potential project, during, but especially years after, its completion? The Willamette River is tidally influenced, as discussed by NOAA Fisheries and elsewhere; if "traffic projections" can be done with accuracy, I expect it's possible to conduct hydrographic surveys to project the future of rivers that are subjugated to anthropogenic climate change and thus, tidal changes. But I have no illusions that determining the answer to that will be simple; for example, vanguard research on climate change and tidal freshwater wetlands in the lower Rhine and Meuse delta in the Netherlands found that neglecting the impact of wind led to "a significant overestimation of accretion rates." (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rra.3282; River Research and Applications Volume 34, Issue 6, July 2018, Pages i, 493-614) Neglecting the wind is a perfect analogy. Omission of an elusive variable, or over emphasis of an illusive one, can lead to overconfidence in a particular outcome that isn't to be. I think of that scene from Groundhog Day, when all goes perfectly for Phil, who narrates each event before it happens: "A gust of wind. A dog barks. Cue the truck." He only notices the wind because he already lived it. Fourth & final question: What conflicts exactly and specifically does this project and its design have with the Willamette River Greenway (WRG) in Portland? In particular, what will happen to the "open space" highlighted in City of Portland's 'Map 2: Base Zones' on page 17 of the December 16th, 2020 WRG Inventory Goal 15 Update, and 'Map 8: Recreation.' The City of Portland notes that ORS 390.318 requires that the Greenway boundary must be at least 150 feet from the ordinary low water line of the river. ORS 390.318 states, "The State Parks and Recreation Department, in cooperation with units of local government that have lands along the Willamette River within their respective boundaries, shall prepare a plan for the development and management of the Willamette River Greenway as described in ORS 390.314," and, "The plan shall include the location of all known subsurface mineral aggregate deposits situated on lands within the boundaries of the Willamette River Greenway."But ORS 390.314(2)(a) gets to the essence of what the Legislative Assembly was doing with that legislation, i.e.: "Recognizing the need of the people of this state for existing residential, commercial and agricultural use of lands along the Willamette River, finds it necessary to permit the continuation of existing uses of lands that are included within such greenway; but, for the benefit of the people of this state, also to limit the intensification and change in the use of such lands so that such uses shall remain, to the greatest possible degree, compatible with the preservation of the natural, scenic, historical and recreational qualities of such lands."While Portlanders may see the entire state of Oregon as a recreational destination, Oregonians living outside the city may see Portland and its riverfront trails as a recreational destination. That aspect of Portland could be doomed to fail, under such a wide expanse of noisy freeway hanging over it. That would be unfortunate. To answer these questions and address their implications, I predict further study is needed, as the answers are not currently or readily available or obvious. Therefore I request that a full Environmental Impact Statement be done. Thank you, Ms. Fast Oregonian |
| 7780 | Aaron | Brown | I5RQ SEA // NMF 1/3/23 Meeting Transcript See also: RQ-7669 Read Transcript |
| 7785 | Matthew | Roman | See RQ-7650Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and Portland Design Commission________________________________Sent: January 4, 2023 Good afternoon. Please see attached and let me know if you have any questions. cw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Warner (He/Him) DATE: January 4, 2023 TO: PBOT - Caitlin Reff & Sharon Daleo FROM: Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and Design CommissionRE: I-5 Rose Quarter Project & Supplemental Environmental AssessmentThe Portland Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC) together with the Portland Design Commission (DC) received briefings on the I-5 Rose Quarter project from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) on December 12, 2022 and December 15, 2022, respectively. Projects of this scale, like the original interstate freeway project, are rare in the history of development in Portland. Like past infrastructure projects across the United States, the burden of demolition and destruction required to build the I-5 freeway through NE Portland in 1966 was carried predominantly by Portland s black community. The Supplemental Environmental Assessment report and presentation from ODOT to our Commissions documents an entire black neighborhood being leveled. As such, few resources remain from an historical era and geographic location important to Portland s African American community. Above and beyond our duty to protect what little is left of the traces of that neighborhood is an obligation to consider some broader themes that relate to our City-wide Comprehensive Plan. Both commissions applaud the rigorous process the agencies and design teams have engaged in including the Independent Cover Assessment and subsequent outreach conducted by Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB). These efforts have resulted in a project concept that supports community redevelopment, reconnection, safety and an enriched public realm for neighborhood residents, businesses and visitors. The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and the Portland Design Commission support the proposed I-5 Rose Quarter Hybrid 3 cover concept. We acknowledge it is the preferred design option and will serve to remedy past harms to both the community and the urban fabric of the City. As noted above, the background and material provided in the presentation was very informative and helpful in understanding the large infrastructure project. However, given the scale, a second briefing with the Design Commission to provide more detailed feedback is requested. A second briefing will certainly help to provide a smooth and predictable process for the Design Review elements and additional input to supplement the feedback ODOT is receiving from other City Committees and Commissions. Given the pace of the project a second briefing in January or February seems appropriate. Details of this request can be found in Sections 2 and 3 below. Our recommendations to you are to consider evaluating the design proposal in the context of (1) Repairing Past Harm, (2) Urban Design Aesthetic and Quality, (3) Transportation System Connections and (4) Climate Resilience. 1. Repairing past harm ▪ It is important that the process has been robust and flexible. As the process continues, community desires should be prioritized in funding decisions.▪ The Commissions understand that the lid structures to be built over I-5 may not be appropriate for ownership in the same way a parcel of land could be owned by a private owner. However, there are currently small, irregular parcels of land on either side of the highway that are in public ownership (ODOT rights-of-way). We strongly advocate for these buildable parcels to be returned to private ownership, and specifically given- or sold for a below-market price- to the minority communities that lived in lower Albina prior to the construction of I-5 and the Veteran s Memorial Coliseum. Although a mechanism to do this would have to be carefully considered, the ownership of these parcels could begin to address the losses the BIPOC community endured and allow for future wealth-building. There are precedents for development over highways and transit tunnels using air rights agreements and longterm building pad leases. ▪ Future buildings that can be supported on actual, at-grade parcels of land (see above bullet point) should also be created where feasible. ▪ ODOT s remnant at-grade properties, next to the developable lids, should be packaged with the lids to enhance the feasibility for development for the combined parcels. Additional outreach to the HAAB may be needed to ensure this approach aligns with the scope and projects identified in the Independent Cover Assessment. ▪ St. Philip the Deacon Episcopal Church is an important resource in Albina. The Landmarks Commission strongly encourages that it be added to the list of churches in the Pillars of Albina list of places, people, events, or industries important to the African American experience in Oregon. ▪ As one of the few remaining historic buildings in the vicinity of I-5, the Landmarks Commission strongly encourages discussion with the owners of the Left Bank building, so as to potentially list it on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the project. ▪ Wall 15 and other surfaces are opportunities for more local black artists and designers. ▪ Consider ways to celebrate and express the legacy of jazz, and music in general, in the design of embellishments and open spaces as both are relevant to the cultural history of the Albina neighborhood. 2. Urban Design Aesthetic and Quality ▪ A high level of urban design and attention to detail will be required to weave the new urban fabric back into the old patterns. Placemaking will only be successful if it can go beyond the physical, structural and traffic connection requirements. How all the infrastructure treatments fit together in an overall, coherent urban design concept (spatial location, integration, and detailed design) is critical. To that end, the Design Commission requests: - A second briefing in the near future, January or February given the pace of the project, to discuss more detailed information on the embellishments and the urban design elements of the project at both highway and neighborhood-levels. The information provided in the presentation was small and difficult to read and a document that graphically highlights the urban design elements of the project, including plans and cross sections, is needed. - A future third briefing that focuses on the Community Framework Agreement and the highway cover development. This briefing needs to occur at the next design milestone for the highway cover that reflects the outcome of the Community Framework Agreement. Summer of 2023 was identified by ODOT and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability as the appropriate time. Items for this briefing to include development parcel size, configuration, on-grade, and on-structure parcels (including location of major structure joint between on-grade and on-structure), block frontages with development edges, open space or open highway structure edges, and massing. ▪ The project needs to designate a budget to elevate the design so that it is more about Portland and not anywhere infrastructure. Areas to focus on include: - Elevate the portal designs as one passes from open highway to covered highway. - At portals and arrival points look for opportunities to express a sense of arrival in Albina. Focus on telescoping the project up through the structure at the portals and at off-ramps. - Connecting the edge of the deck to adjacent properties and allowing for unique opportunities for the public to occupy edges and see views. - Celebrate the structure. Right now, it is a harsh concrete deck and there are opportunities to celebrate it as a healing intervention. - Street-level embellishments should be prioritized over highway-level treatments. ▪ The Design Commission notes that large expanses of concrete walls, such as Wall 15 : - Should be minimized to avoid another sea of concrete. - Large walls could be terraced to provide room for landscape treatments, however, terracing could increase the footprint of the highway, potentially reducing the size of development parcels flanking the ODOT ROW. An attractive corridor that maximizes both on-grade and on-structure development parcels is the goal. - The designs should include changes in plane, details at different scales and culturally meaningful motifs. ▪ I-5 in the Rose Quarter area was unfortunately not constructed exactly parallel to Wheeler Avenue and the grid west of it along the river, but it may be close enough to that angle so that it will be perceived as the same, once development occurs on the highway lids. The Landmarks Commission strongly encourages the recognition of the two older street grids in the development of the highway covers. Because of the two street grids coming together in this area, development on the new highway covers might be appropriate with two slightly different approaches. The western side of the highway covers will face the river grid and could be developed as angled buildings at the inflection point. The eastern side, however, may be more appropriate as orthogonal buildings, facing the more predominant street grid. ▪ Durability, vandal-resistance, vandal access prevention to visible surfaces, ease of replacement or repair are critical for all design elements; future maintenance will be minimal, and Portland has a significant graffiti problem on both private and public property. ▪ Ensure that the cost of highway cover(s) result in economically feasible development parcels. ▪ Ensure successful, lively, inviting public open space location, adjacent uses, access, solar orientation, active programming, character of detailed treatments, etc. are all critical. ▪ Support Title 33 Zoning Code Amendments to allow commercial development on future created parcels over and along the existing highway. ▪ As a footnote to our agency partners, the Design Commission, whether in a statutory land use review for a development proposal or in a courtesy, advisory review for major public works, uses the Central City Fundamental Design Guidelines (CCFDG) as our basis of evaluation and recommendation. Three major chapters of the CCFDGs are Context, Public Realm and Quality and Permanence. You ll find the language of those guidelines entirely relevant to the I-5 Rose Quarter Project. 3. Transportation System Connections ▪ The Green Loop as it crosses I-5 is an important part of the design and an important part of the project. The Landmarks Commission notes that the lack of street trees or development for several blocks next to I-5 on these streets is hardly conducive to pedestrian or bike traffic. At a minimum, street trees are critical for the Green Loop to be inviting, and the pattern of trees must extend into the lid design. There are technical ways to integrate at-grade street trees on the local streets crossing the cover, using precast boxes nested between girders. Street trees, streetlights, furnishings in normal urban sidewalk configuration will be essential to giving continuity of the neighborhood fabric as it crosses the cover east to west. ▪ It will be important to address the Vancouver Avenue intersection with Broadway as it is currently dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists. As noted in Section 2 above, a second briefing in January or February is requested for the Design Commission to provide guidance on the local transportation system. Additional information requested includes: - Surface street/intersection/block pattern concept within project area. - ROW widths, sidewalk width, intersection crossings (signalized/unsignalized), corner radii, pedestrian/bike facilities. - Local street design character: urban tree canopy, lighting, furnishings including public art, such as monuments. 4. Climate ▪ Mitigation for the negative climate aspects of using a significant amount of concrete in the project might include encouraging white or light-colored surfaces especially at surfaces facing the sun, planning for tree wells and other planters to provide greenery, and to consider shade at the pedestrian realm as a critical design consideration.▪ Additionally, innovative concrete mixes that reduce carbon like fly-ash, geopolymers and graphene should be investigated. This project is one that can not only be less impactful on the environment but can also contribute to Portland s reputation for being ahead of many American cities in terms of transportation and sustainability. Portland will have few opportunities to make such a significant correction to a historical injustice. The chance to reshape and repair an entire inner-city neighborhood with all the intention of the community fully expressed in the outcome should not be missed. A vision of more than a freeway improvement project has been presented. It is based on a broad spectrum of community engagement. What is needed is further investment by the City of Portland for the duration of the project to ensure we get more than an infrastructure project but rather a chance to address a number of our comprehensive plan goals. We can turn a highway widening project into a place making endeavor where the end result makes a statement about our values and the importance of good civic spaces for all communities. In closing, both the HLC and DC compliment the agencies and design team for the progress to-date and look forward to reviewing more developed designs in the near future and in the summer of 2023 at the next design milestone. Sincerely, The Historic Landmarks Commission and the Design Commission CC: Rebecca Esau, Director of BDS Troy Doss, BPS Design & Historic Review Team of BDS |
| 7786 | Jana | Jarvis | See RQ-7650Separate record for Portland Freight Committee________________________________Sent: January 4, 2023 Subject: Supplemental EA public comment periodGood afternoon. Please see attached and let me know if you have any questions. cw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Warner (He/Him)December 13, 2022To: Chris Warner, Director Portland Bureau of TransportationSubject: I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) commentOn behalf of the Portland Freight Committee (PFC), we are submitting the following testimony in support of ODOT's I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project, for which the Federal Highway Administration published the Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA), in accordance with NEPA, that examines the environmental effects associated with the updated "Hybrid 3" highway cover design. The Rose Quarter area is one of the top 100 traffic-clogging bottlenecks of the freight industry in the country. Moreover, it represents one of the two major bottlenecks listed by the American Transportation Research Institute for the State of Oregon. Therefore, we want to stress the importance of this project to the movement of goods for our region at this major freeway interchange area. We also recognize and appreciate the additional community outreach completed as part of the Independent Cover Assessment work as directed by the Oregon Transportation Commission and support the resulting updated project concept to provide a larger cover over the highway and restore the local street grid in the project area. Questions to be answered include if there are substantial changes to freight travel patterns and what infrastructure considerations are necessary for the streets and intersections providing local connections in the area. Thus, we want to stretch the need to understand the freight operational needs better to inform the appropriate design that accommodates the freight demand flows in both the interstate and the local routes. We encourage ODOT to address the following topics: 1. Design considerations (i.e., geometric approaches, slopes, vertical clearances, alignments, and turning radii) that support the efficient and safe movement of freight while balancing the needs of a multi-modal transportation network. 2. Comprehensive outreach to the freight community to capture better what over-dimensional load, heavy freight, local delivery, and temporal patterns are inherent in this area. The associated impacts to travel time and local movement for freight operations related to the relocation of the I-5 southbound off-ramps from Broadway further south to N. Wheeler Ave and circulation change based on the highway cover design, including: a. Broadway and Weidler are the designated freight routes. However, the proposed design requires the usage of Wheeler and N Williams Ave, both local service truckstreets not designed to accommodate major freight volumes Thus, we encourageODOT to evaluate what infrastructure changes are required based on the newtravel patterns. b. Geometric design of the SB exit ramp at Williams. The SEA materials show a sharpturning radius for this connection that could negatively impact trucking operationsand increase conflict between freight and other road users. 4. Implications related to increased vehicle traffic on local streets as a result of tolling or the reconfigurations of the interstate or to the local connection associated with this project or the IBR project. 5. Regional project coordination between ODOT and their regional partners for the IBR and Rose Quarter project. 6. Earthquake resilience design considerations in particular for the upgraded lid over the i-5. The Portland Freight Committee strongly supports these critical regional transportation projects, and we look forward to helping your efforts in advancing these projects to completion. Respectfully yours, Cc: Sharon Daleo, PBOT |
| 7787 | Joseph | Perez | See RQ-7650Separate record for Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee________________________________Sent: January 4, 2023 Subject: Supplemental EA public comment period Good afternoon. Please see attached and let me know if you have any questions. cw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Warner (He/Him)December 27, 2022To: Chris Warner, Director Portland Bureau of Transportation Subject: I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) comments All of us in the country and literally in the world count on Portland to lead, and it is time, I think, for you to challenge some basic assumptions. Former Mayor of Minneapolis, R.T. Rybak The Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) has reviewed the I-5 Rose Quarter SEA and is deeply concerned that this project fails to meet a wide variety of city, county, regional, and statewide goals. We are concerned that this project will not make conditions safer for people who want to ride bicycles, walk and take transit in Portland. The project is now rescinding a previously included walking and bicycling bridge at Clackamas Street alignment. The SEA acknowledges that conditions will be worse than prior designs. This negative outcome is out of touch with City of Portland policies that call for conditions that are safe, attractive and convenient for everyone. While the buildable highway cover is a laudable step toward restorative justice, the project would still add several lane miles of highway, compromise one of the most heavily used bikeways in the city, expand I-5 s footprint, and increase emissions including greenhouse gasses (GHG) in a marginalized community previously impacted by highway construction. As the region grows, there is no way to reduce congestion other than to have fewer vehicles on roads, dramatically lower speed limits, variable speed limits, enforcement of speed limits and more attractive walking and bicycling facilities such as the Clackamas Street bridge. Further, the two lane offramp onto NE Williams Avenue presents significant safety issues for the most vulnerable roadway users and is inconsistent with the City's design standards. Finally, by excluding any consideration of tolling in the project area and any projections of traffic volumes on I-5 and surface streets, future designs will be incongruent with reasonably foreseeable scenarios where tolling is enacted. [T]he relocation of the southbound ramp would worsen LTS conditions at the intersection of NE Wheeler Avenue/ N Ramsay Way/ N Williams Avenue compared to the Build Alternative and would have similar poor crossing conditions to the No-Build Alternative. With regards to the Green Loop, route directness in the API would be similar to the No-Build Alternative but worse than the Build Alternative without the Clackamas Bridge. These two areas are not compatible with City policy regarding the Bicycle District overlapping the project area. The Wheeler / Ramsay / Williams intersection does not appear to regard the safety of people walking and riding bicycles as an important consideration for this project. We are concerned about removing the bike box at Weidler leading to an increase in right hook crashes and leading to increased congestion for people riding bicycles within this intersection. We do not believe adding a one way or two way cycletrack on Weidler which already has Streetcar would be safer than an exclusive bicycle and pedestrian bridge at Clackamas Street. The Weidler cycletrack would cross Williams, an admitted LTS problem at Wheeler and Ramsay mentioned above. Portland modal hierarchy ranks pedestrian, bicycle and transit movements ahead of all others, but the cycletrack solution does not follow that hierarchy. The Clackamas Street Bridge would help mitigate the safety impacts of crossing Williams Avenue on foot or bicycle. I-5 / RQ SEA Comments Page 2 of 7 The Green Loop is planned to be the premier bicycle route in Portland, but it will lose its luster without the safety and comfort provided by the formerly proposed Clackamas Bridge. In addition to providing restorative justice, another intent of the City of Portland is to provide a high quality bicycle facilities and park-like experience on the Green Loop. Removing the Clackamas bridge is in direct contradiction with Portland 2035 Central City recommendation for a connection over the I-5. The bridge must remain, and the approach path must be realigned toward NE Multnomah Street until it can cross the I-5. Perhaps the overhead ODOT sign bridge between exit 302a and 301 (45.53199691950909, -122.66535046490218) can be replaced with a walking/bicycling bridge and the ODOT signs reattached (Option 1). After crossing I-5, the bridge can then return to NE Ramsay Way along the curvature of N Wheeler Ave. Above is a conceptual idea of two options that we ask the design team to explore. There appears to be room in the polygon between Williams off ramps and Wheeler on ramps to explore option 2. In this city-designated bicycle district the 2030 Bicycle Master Plan section 2.3.1 states that within certain dense, mixed-use areas of Portland with multiple destinations along most streets, all streets need to function well for people bicycling to or through the district. Additional clarification is provided in section 2.3.5 on page 29, [a]s focal points for economic, recreational and employment activities, such areas need to be exceptionally welcoming to people arriving by and traveling through by bicycle. Clackamas bridge could provide a safer connection to Flint Avenue to further recognize the important role of Flint Avenue as a community-oriented connection between the Rose Quarter and Lillis Albina Park. To add even greater emphasis on bicycling and walking in the area, the installation of a bridge should not preclude the installation of a cycle track along Weidler. Nevertheless, Weidler is not a suitable or welcoming multi-use path compared to the Green Loop/Clackamas plan previously approved in the Central City 2035 Plan. A bridge, preferably an attractive one like Blumenauer, would be especially welcoming. The Revised Build I-5 / RQ SEA Comments Page 3 of 7does not comply with Portland policies, plans, and priorities. Please bring back the Clackamas overcrossing. It is puzzling that some aspects of the no build alternative are better for people riding bicycles than the revised build alternative submitted in the SEA. How will the City and FHWA endeavor to make bicycling more attractive than driving in this project? The BAC has concerns that, while provided previously, we believe are important to identify individually: 1) Tolling must be included in this project s analysis. This is becoming even more important given recent news that the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project has increased in cost from $3-4.8 billion to $5-7.5 billion. There is a difference between charging for road usage to regulate demand and charging to generate revenue to pay for mega projects such as the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. With the changes to the I-5 Rose Quarter SEA from the original EA increasing the price significantly there will be more pressure to establish tolling on I-5 and I-205 to pay for these projects which would significantly impact any traffic modeling in the SEA. 2) There is insufficient space for bicycles on Williams/Vancouver based on current traffic volumes let alone future traffic volumes. Williams is a Major City Bikeway. What modes will be prioritized on the exit ramp as people walking and bicycling connect to local streets? 3) The southbound off-ramp to Williams is exceedingly unsafe for people walking and bicycling, probably the most dangerous spot for this infrastructure in the project area. It will be the most congested and require significant bicycle prioritization. How will ODOT/FHWA prioritize the safety of people riding bicycles over vehicles? The SEA suggests that To mitigate the increased safety risk to pedestrians crossing the I-5 ramp terminals, additional traffic calming measures and modification to signal operations will be coordinated with the City during the design phase 4) The project area is in a city designated bicycle district meaning any transportation infrastructure must be more desirable for bicycling than other modes. Portland is an urban area, in an urban setting and therefore, there will be congestion; to think or try to design otherwise is in opposition to Metro s climate smart strategy. We should be investing in transit and multimodal movement along parallel corridors instead. This would have huge benefits in moving the needle and have significant climate and congestion benefits. 5) Missing crosswalks undercuts assertions that this is meant to be a space for people on foot. A pedestrian district is not compatible with the number of crossings that will be missing. When crossings are missing it sends the subtle and unmistakable message that pedestrians are tolerated in an area rather than accepted and encouraged. 6) Circuitous path to get to Rose Quarter destinations increasing VMT - means more dangerous, less safe, more opportunities for crashes, red light running, etc. 7) There is no bicycle modeling. Metro has developed a bicycle model. Region 1 and other parts of ODOT should be using a bicycle model in Portland. Does ODOT have a policy to use a bicycle model or make an exception to not use one? Does the State/FHWA need to mandate the use of a bicycle model for ODOT to comply? I-5 / RQ SEA Comments Page 4 of 7 8) No cost estimates in over two years. With increased scope plus inflation this project could have issues with a lack of funding; excessive costs will limit capacity to improve safety on urban highways throughout the city and state. This is even more critical given the recent update announced for the Interstate Bridge Replacement project revising the prior $3-4.8 billion estimate to $5-7.5 billion even with a decrease in scope. Meanwhile the I-5 Rose Quarter project has a significantly larger scope since the last cost estimate was released and the relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School, which was not considered before this project gained traction, means the true cost will be at least $120 million1 below what is borne by the State of Oregon. 9) The relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School, where minority students are the majority of students, is forecast/supported by this project. We are extremely concerned about the displacement of Black children to facilitate a freeway project. This is a repeat offense, history is repeating itself. ODOT needs more lanes and Black children are in the way, so they must go. BAC fully supports restorative justice efforts by ODOT and the State of Oregon and we hope that they achieve a solution that is guided by the African American community. 10) We are confused by this statement in the project FAQ: Nearly 99% of southbound vehicles using the I-405 Fremont Bridge exit I-5 within 2 miles, either at Broadway, I-84, or the Morrison Bridge. These three exits are all within the project area. Broadway already has an auxiliary lane so what is the % exiting to I-84 and Morrison? Is I-405 really the culprit here? There are also on-ramps from N Greeley Ave and N Wheeler Ave onto I-5. So this leads to yet another concern: How many other southbound vehicles using I-5 besides I-405 will exit within the 2 miles of the project area? They will need to change lanes to the auxiliary lanes too. Will we just be creating a new bottleneck of lane changing and weaving to/from the proposed auxiliary lane? 11) Failure to analyze impact of building a lid without impacting current lane miles of I-5. Nowhere in the SEA does ODOT refer to a successful freeway tunnel in an urban area. Solving the merge problem for I405 users will create a lane change and weaving problem for I-5 users. 1 HB 5202-1 Amendment: Index of Sections (2022 Budget Reconciliation). https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2022R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/254502 In the figure above, we see that I-5 users will have to change lanes twice to exit at Broadway or I-84, first weaving to their right across the Morrison Bridge auxiliary lane and then changing lanes into the Greeley auxiliary lane to I-84 exit. I-5 users wishing to exit at Morrison Bridge will have to decide when to weave and change lanes, at Greeley, at 405, or after I-84 to take the Morrison bridge exit. A similar hazard will be present for northbound traffic. I-5 users will now have to change lanes twice to exit at Weidler or I-405, first weaving to their right across the I-405 auxiliary lane and then changing lanes into the I-84 auxiliary lane to Weidler exit. Northbound I-5 users wishing to exit at Greeley will have to decide when to weave and change lanes at I-84, at Weidler, or after I-405 to take the Greeley Ave exit. In the figure below we see that much of this lane changing and weaving of I-405, I-84, and I-5 will take place across three lanes in just900 feet. There is research that shows crash frequency is positively proportional to the number of lanes I-5 / RQ SEA Comments Page 6 of 7 on the freeway and the average daily traffic per lane on the freeway, but negatively proportional to the length of the auxiliary lane and the percentage of heavy vehicles on the freeway. 2 Another study found that if the weaving segment is followed by an entrance/exit ramp and this ramp has high traffic volume, it can be less operationally favorable to extend and terminate the auxiliary lane at this entrance/exit ramp location. Instead, dropping the auxiliary lane before this entrance/exit ramp represents a more operationally effective option. 3 A third study finds: that for an auxiliary lane diverging and merging from outside, the optimum length should be 1,000m 1,500m and be added from around the start of vertical curve to several hundred meters beyond the end of vertical curve. 4 1000m is 3280 feet, not 900 . From a fourth study, Providing an auxiliary lane was expected to decrease crash frequency, although this reduction appeared to be primarily in crashes that were less severe (possible injury and property damage only). 5 We take umbrage to this statement in the Active Transportation Supplemental Technical Report. Because people walking and bicycling are sensitive to conditions on a more granular scale, the active transportation network s functionality and attractiveness would largely depend on design details, which are less defined at this level of analysis. Route directness, level of stress and risk, grades, delay, and other factors would collectively inform the user s perception. How can the current level of design for vehicletraffic and circulation be completed without similar efforts for people walking and riding bicycles? Again, ODOT is not treating all people who use the roadway the same, instead deprioritizing the more vulnerable road users. Conflicts with vehicles for people are not a perception, but a stark and often tragic safety reality. In fact, mentions of right hook risk have been entirely removed. In making these statements, we feel that ODOT has abandoned people who ride bicycles, people who walk, and people who take transit. In 2019, PBOT reviewers advised the design team to use the word could instead of would as PBOT will need to vet and agree that people riding bicycles would use a particular facility as opposed to could use a particular facility. The word would is still quite prevalent in the SEA. We are concerned that ODOT claims to be designing this project for an ODOT LTS 1 user and even provides a few tables (yet the design details are less defined at this level of analysis). We are concerned that Region 1 has not addressed the 200+ instances of events annually near Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum that generate significant pedestrian traffic near Williams and throughout the Rose Quarter. PBOT notified the design team in 2019 that Winning Way is actually Ramsay Way and yet they have failed to correct a reference to Winning Way in section 6.2.1 of the Transportation Safety Technical Report. We are concerned that this confirms the project's focus is on the freeway, not on the local street network.In summary 1) We would like to work with ZGF architects to ensure that the Clackamas Street bridge is built by the I-5 Rose Quarter project. 2) We need ODOT to empower and support the entire design team to respect and implement Portland standards for safety, attractiveness, and modal priority. 3) We need ODOT to make meaningful investments in sidewalks, bike lanes, public transportation, lower speed limits, variable speed limits, and speed limit enforcement that will make the area safer for all people using the roadway, especially the most vulnerable ones. We need these investments to be THE priority, far and away higher than a limited widening solution.Respectfully, Joseph Perez David Stein Vice Chairperson Member, Former Chairperson Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee Member and BAC Liaison PBOT Bureau Budget Advisory Committee 2 Safety Impacts of Auxiliary Lanes at Isolated Freeway On-Ramp Junctions: Journal of Transportation Safety & Security: Vol 5, No 4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19439962.2012.7616613 Methods of dropping auxiliary lanes at freeway weaving segments: Transportation Planning and Technology: Vol41, No 4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03081060.2018.14534624 Effective Installation of an Auxiliary Lane at Sag Sections to Mitigate Motorway Traffic Congestion. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146516305452 5 Combined Crash Frequency Crash Severity Evaluation of Geometric Design Decisions: Entrance Exit Ramp Spacing and Auxiliary Lane Presence. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/2521-06 |
| 7788 | Tiel | Jackson | See RQ-7650Separate record for Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee________________________________Sent: January 4, 2023 Subject: Supplemental EA public comment periodGood afternoon. Please see attached and let me know if you have any questions. cw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Warner (He/Him)To: Director WarnerCc: Sharon Daleo RE: ODOT I-5 Rose Quarter Supplemental Environmental AssessmentPBOT Staff and Leadership, The Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee (PAC) has reviewed the SupplementalEnvironmental Assessment for the Rose Quarter Improvement Project and the proposed Hybrid 3 proposal. This project will create treacherous conditions for people walking on surface streets in the Rose Quarter. We call on PBOT to oppose the relocation of the I-5 SB off-ramp, closure of crosswalks, and other components of Hybrid 3 that will worsen conditions for active modes. The current proposal goes in the wrong direction on climate, the wrong direction on safety, and the wrong direction on our modal goals, while providing little promise of accountability and follow-through for the few positive claims it can make. PAC members volunteer their time to guide City leadership in focusing on its commitments to prioritizing pedestrian modes, and we call on PBOT to honor those commitments. Portland has committed to prioritizing pedestrian modes in the City s transportation hierarchy, and PBOT policies clearly direct leaders to prioritize walking over other modes to improve pedestrian safety, accessibility, and convenience. PBOT s Transportation System Plan (TSP)Policy 9.6 states that saving the lives of our most vulnerable road users people walking and biking is the bureau s top priority. Further, the TSP includes commitments to:● Encourage walking as the most attractive mode of transportation for most short trips, within and to centers, corridors, and major destinations, and as a means for accessingtransit. (Policy 9.16)● Create more complete networks of pedestrian facilities, and improve the quality of the pedestrian environment. (Policy 9.17)● Improve pedestrian safety, accessibility, and convenience for people of all ages andabilities. (Policy 9.18)In the face of these clear goals, Portland has continued to struggle with a legacy of substandard infrastructure and underfunded projects, with the heartbreaking and enraging result that dozensof our friends, family, and neighbors die on our streets each year. Two members of this committee have lost children in Portland crosswalks, and many of us have been personally impacted by vehicular violence in our lives. Pedestrian fatalities reached a 70-year high in Portland in 2022 an unacceptable and predictable result of the City not living up to their stated goals.The I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project is, at its heart, a highway project focused on reducing congestion and moving automobiles quickly. While ODOT has expanded the project to include potential for connectivity of the surrounding area, its own analysis shows many areaswhere pedestrian safety and convenience will directly be made worse in the surrounding area. Specific examples from the SEA include:● The relocation of the I-5 SB off-ramp at the intersection of NE Wheeler/N Ramsay/N Williams (formerly NE Wheeler) and N Vancouver under the Revised Build Alternativewould increase the length and complexity of crossings and reduce safety for NB cyclists and pedestrians on N Williams south of N/NE Weidler... Closures of the crosswalk on thewest side of N Williams, crossing N Broadway, and the crosswalk on the north side of NE Weidler, crossing N Williams would introduce more complicated crossings (e.g.,out-of-direction travel) on this section of N Williams... (pg. 94) Highway ramps areoften very stressful crossing points with vehicles exiting at high speeds. The ModaCenter area inherently includes large pedestrian events before and after games,concerts, and other gatherings. The area is also a heavy bike/ped thoroughfare and major transit hub. Creating an environment with more difficult crossings and detours forpeople walking is the opposite of what we need to be doing to move toward greater pedestrian safety and comfort.● Increased potential for pedestrian auto conflict due to the placement of the I-5 SB offrampand updated turning movements (i.e. a double right turn lane) (pg. 97). ODOT claims that the added dangers may possibly be mitigated by signal phases and other design elements, but does not commit to any of these interventions. For a project to warrant the level of investment that ODOT is seeking, it should center pedestrian safety rather than first prioritizing high-volume high-speed traffic flow, and only then tinkering around the edges to add back some chance that people walking will be able to navigate safely. The current design violates multiple TSP policy commitments in its failure to center and commit to safe pedestrian travel.● Closing crosswalks (West side of N Williams crossing NE Broadway,North side of NE Weidler St crossing N Williams) in a Pedestrian District moves against the goals of the TSP and standards of PedPDX.● Removing Clackamas Crossing eliminates one of the few project elements that would otherwise improve active transportation access and safety consistent with local goals.● Designs for the area suggest 4-lane arterials where high speeds from freeway traffic arepredictable the antithesis of a design that would center pedestrians or further climateand safety goals. These negative impacts to pedestrian safety and comfort are notable even before considering how much ODOT is leaning on the City of Portland to contribute staff time and funding toward surface street changes and other support when those resources are urgently needed to mitigate deadly conditions in hundreds of other locations citywide. We urge PBOT not to invest time and resources in a project that clearly runs against the transportation and climate goals and policies that Portlanders have set for ourselves. The current crisis on our streets demands that PBOT, ODOT, and associated partners focus on projects that actively center safety for active modes. We urge PBOT to withdraw its support of the components of the Hybrid 3 concept that willworsen conditions for pedestrians and anyone else not in an automobile. Tiel JacksonCo-Chair, Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee Rebecca L. Sanders, PhD, RSP2BCo-Chair, Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee |