Oregon transportation officials are exploring whether they could widen Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter by expanding the freeway westward, avoiding a controversial proposal to further encroach on Harriet Tubman Middle School, the majority-minority school that sits perched just east of the interstate.
Megan Channell, project manager leading the Rose Quarter freeway project, briefed two state committees on that option this week. The state estimates it will have to decide if it’s a feasible option by mid-July.
Design work on the nearly $800 million project, which would add shoulders and merging lanes on I-5 between the interchanges with I-84 and I-405, is 20% complete.
Tubman has been one of the issues at the center of opposition to the project, along with the still ongoing question of whether the project can be built to accommodate expansive freeway covers – concrete spans over the existing interstate – to help reconnect the Albina neighborhood that was decimated by the freeway decades ago.
A rally hosted by the activist group No More Freeways drew more than 150 students and opponents to Tubman earlier this month.
People concerned about air quality for students at the school, which serves a heavily Black enrollment, have pointed out that the expansion would bring the freeway dangerously close to the school and its playground. An OPB story published earlier this month indicated a noise wall projected to be built under the project would be less than 25 feet from the building.
The anti-freeway group, along with the Elliot Neighborhood Association and the nonprofit Neighbors for Clean Air, sued the federal government this month, arguing the project should not have moved forward under a less extensive environmental review chosen by the state.
Channell on Monday told the executive steering committee, charged with advising the Oregon Department of Transportation and the state’s transportation commission on the project design and construction, that the state was exploring shifting the freeway project west due to “technical and construction concerns.” The concept, though, would also respond to a major criticism the state has heard, she added, meaning the encroachment on Tubman.
“We’re at the infancy, early stages of this evaluation,” she said Monday.
Julia Brim-Edwards, a Portland Public School board member who sits on the steering committee, said it was “a pretty significant development.”
The school board wants the state to present information and answer questions about the freeway project at a school board meeting, Brim-Edwards said. “We’re interested in hearing more about this,” she said.
A district spokesperson confirmed district leaders are aware of the concept but said they are awaiting more details.
Lynn Peterson, Metro Council president and a fellow committee member, asked whether the land to the west of the freeway sits within the existing state-owned right of way and whether expanding it would trigger additional environmental requirements.
Channell confirmed that “there are options where it would go outside the right of way.”
“We obviously will need to make sure we’re in coordination with FHWA on that,” she said, referring to the federal highway administration. She added the federal government would determine whether those changes would be deemed significant enough to trigger further study.
According to renderings provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday, the new proposal would expand the freeway’s footprint 24 feet on the western edge.
Channell said that would affect Shin Shin Foods, a noodle manufacturer located immediately west of the freeway with its roof lower than freeway height. “We’re exploring how that property may be impacted,” she told the committee.
A call to the company wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.
According to the rendering, a 12-foot shoulder and auxiliary lane can still fit on the freeways northbound side without widening it west toward Tubman. The preliminary design called for shifting the freeway 26 feet closer to the middle school.
In an email, state transportation officials said the construction challenges Channell alluded to were first identified late last year when the state brought on a construction team hired to manage the project.
April DeLeon, a project spokesperson, said Wednesday that the state began in late January to explore the option outlined by Channell publicly this week for the first time. “We were able to better understand those challenges from both a design and constructability perspective and directed the team to do further evaluation of an alternative alignment.”
