Why Is This Freeway So Expensive? (Hint: Because It’s Too Damn Wide!)
This article was originally published in City Observatory. It is shared here with permission. All images for this piece were provided by the author unless otherwise indicated.
The fundamental problem with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT’s) I-5 Rose Quarter project, and the reason why it has blown through its budget, is that it is really a massive freeway-widening project. The agency claims it’s just adding a couple of “auxiliary” lanes, but in reality, it’s doubling the width of Interstate 5 in a complex urban environment, and its plans for a much wider roadway are the principal reason the project, and its covers, are so expensive.
A Too-Wide Freeway
What no one seems willing to do is ask basic questions about the Rose Quarter. Is the project worth $1.9 billion? Does it even need to be that big and expensive? Isn’t the skyrocketing cost and ODOT’s growing fiscal crisis a signal that we should consider some other options?
The high cost and prodigious cost overruns of the Rose Quarter are directly related to the excessive width of the project, something that ODOT has gone to great lengths to conceal, characterizing the project as merely adding a single auxiliary lane in each direction. In reality, the project would essentially double the width of I-5 through the Rose Quarter, from its current 82-foot width to 160 feet (and in some places as much as 200 feet).
A brief chronology shows how ODOT staff have repeatedly concealed or obscured the width of the I-5 Rose Quarter project. Their initial 2019 Environmental Assessment presented a misleading and cartoonish freeway cross section that appeared to show that the freeway would be widened to about 126 feet.
City Observatory challenged these claims about the width of the freeway to the Oregon Transportation Commission in December 2020, and the commission directed the staff to meet with us to discuss the issue. The staff refused to answer any questions during this meeting, and instead later issued a written report obfuscating the actual width of the freeway.
In March 2021, No More Freeways obtained three different internal project documents indicating that the actual width of the roadway would be 160 feet. These included 2015 engineering drawings, as well as architect’s illustrations and computerized CAD files.
As we’ve pointed out before, this cross section could easily accommodate 10 travel lanes, and regardless of ODOT’s labeling, once built, the road could be re-striped in an afternoon.
Even the project’s Supplemental Environmental Assessment, released in November 2022, conceals the actual width of the project. Here is the project’s own plan showing the freeway cross-section. The plan omits measurements, so we’ve added scale markings showing 200-foot widths.
ODOT plans for I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway (200-foot scale marking added by City Observatory.)
ODOT’s own consultants, the internationally recognized engineering firm ARUP, concluded that the Rose Quarter project was vastly wider than it needed to be. They pointed out that no comparable urban freeway in any city has the over-wide, 12-foot shoulders designed into the Rose Quarter project. ARUP concluded that the extreme width of the ODOT design was the principal reason freeway covers cost so much, and said the freeway could be 40 feet narrower than ODOT’s design. ODOT’s own “Cost to Complete” report concedes that a key cost driver is the need to lower the surface of the existing roadway in order to provide the necessary vertical clearance over the much thicker overpass beams that will be needed to span the wider roadway.
Covers Alone Could Be Vastly Cheaper
If this project consisted simply of building a cover over the existing I-5 freeway, it would be vastly cheaper. Washington’s Department of Transportation is proposing to build a similar cover over a portion of I-5 in Vancouver as part of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project. The “Community Connector” cover is designed to re-connect historic Fort Vancouver with the city’s downtown. It will be about 300 feet wide, about an acre in size, and is estimated to cost $37 million.
Vancouver’s proposed Community Connector cover I-5 for just $37 million.
ODOT has never explored simply building a lid over the existing freeway to “re-connect” the community. If this were simply about building a cover to re-connect the community, it could have been done by now for a fraction of the $115 million ODOT has spent so far, just on planning the Rose Quarter.
What To Do Instead
ODOT could cap the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter without widening it. And if ODOT is really committed to “restorative justice,” then reallocate available money for this project as reparations to the Albina community, and allow them to spend it however they see fit to rectify the damage done by the construction of I-5, Interstate Avenue, and the Fremont Bridge ramps. Oregon routinely spends highway funds mitigating the environmental damage of its freeways, on everything from sound walls to wetlands. It also has used highway funds to replace displaced structures (the old Rocky Butte Jail), and other states have used federal highway funds to replace housing destroyed by freeway construction. If we were serious about redressing the harm done to the Albina neighborhood, we’d be looking to reduce the size of I-5, spend more money improving the neighborhood, and build back the housing ODOT destroyed.
Joe Cortright is President and principal economist of Impresa, a consulting firm specializing in regional economic analysis, innovation and industry clusters. Over the past two decades he has specialized in urban economies, developing the City Vitals framework with CEOs for Cities, and developing the city dividends concept.
Joe’s work casts a light on the role of knowledge-based industries in shaping regional economies. Prior to starting Impresa, Joe served for 12 years as the Executive Officer of the Oregon Legislature’s Trade and Economic Development Committee. When he’s not crunching data on cities, you’ll usually find him playing petanque, the French cousin of bocce.