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An Oregon Department of Transportation official announced Oct. 17 that the U.S. Department of Transportation has denied the agency’s request for $750 million to help fund the widening of Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter.
Speaking to a work group convened by the Joint Committee on Transportation, ODOT’s Brendan Finn, the agency’s director of urban mobility and major projects, said the agency had just learned from the U.S. Transportation Department that the feds had rejected ODOT’s application for $750 million to help pay for the proposed widening of I-5 at the Rose Quarter.
“We shot for lightning to strike twice but were unsuccessful,” Finn told the group.
That leaves a significant budget gap for one of the agency’s two largest current projects (the other is the replacement of the Interstate Bridge to Vancouver). And the news comes as the Joint Transportation Commission is working feverishly to develop a bailout for ODOT, which says it faces a large funding gap for both operations and capital projects.
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Earlier this year, the feds awarded $450 million to help pay for a cover over part of the 1.8-mile stretch of I-5 through the Rose Quarter that ODOT hopes to widen. Finn explained Oct. 17 that the project, which the Legislature approved and partially funded in 2017, faces a yawning budget gap between $900 million and $1.3 billion.
Currently, the agency has just $150 million set aside to pay for it and is including the $450 million federal grant in its calculations. But the total price tag on the Rose Quarter project has ballooned from $450 million in 2017 to $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion today, hence the gap.
ODOT and lawmakers spent the past four months explaining the agency’s predicament in a statewide roadshow: Inflation and project costs have increased far faster than the agency’s revenue. Meanwhile, political opposition has negated tolling, which the Legislature had hoped would become a major source of funding for large projects.
Oregon’s business community and the Oregon Trucking Association are keen to see ODOT complete the Rose Quarter project because they think a wider I-5 will reduce congestion. Environmentalists oppose widening the freeway, arguing that tolling could reduce congestion without more lanes and that encouraging more traffic conflicts with the state’s carbon reduction goals.
Chris Smith of the group No More Freeways says ODOT’s failure to get the $750 million federal grant for the Rose Quarter should be a wake-up call.
“We continue to call on state legislators, Gov. Tina Kotek and the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop a plan for a ‘right-sized’ Rose Quarter project that leads with investments that restore the livability of Albina, rather than needlessly doubling the size of the I-5 freeway,” Smith said.