PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Transportation began early work this summer on the Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project, but with the project still missing the vast majority of its needed funding, there was an understanding that the agency would quickly reach a point where it wouldn’t be able keep construction going.
A slide deck for an Oregon Transportation Commission meeting on Thursday, first reported by BikePortland, reveals that ODOT plans to ask its governing body for guidance on how to proceed when that moment arrives. One of the options on the list: wind down construction after the completion of “Phase 1A” in 2027 and put the rest of the project on hold indefinitely.
The $2 billion project aims to widen I-5 and build a 1,500-foot cover over the freeway to reconnect the Albina neighborhood. ODOT has broken the project up into increasingly granular phases in response to a rising price tag and financial setbacks, the most significant of which came in July when the Trump administration revoked most of a $450 million federal grant for the freeway cover.
ODOT’s plan had been to first build Phase 1A, which includes stormwater improvements and the renovation of an I-5 overpass at the southern end of the Rose Quarter, followed by the rest of Phase 1, which would include some of the freeway widening and about 30% of the cover, replacing the current Broadway and Weidler overpasses…