No More Freeways

"A heavy manufacturer on the Columbia River has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program’s (IBR) preferred fixed-span design"

Oregon legislators have the opportunity to capitalize on the popularity of Cascades by funding rail infrastructure improvements and expanding service in the Willamette Valley to 6 daily round trips. We encourage you to share this news with your state reps and share your support for passenger rail.

my kingdom for a pdx-rogue valley, just want to visit my parents by rail

Hard to overstate how big of news this is. Now it's time for both Portland and the state of Oregon to change their codes to the IBC standard and allow construction of new single-stair multifamily housing buildings at least to four stories. Sunlight suites for all!

when ODOT presents to the Oregon Climate Action Committee about the lack of progress on statewide transportation decarbonization

Willamette Week has once again taken Susan McLain, Chair of the Joint Transportation Committee, to task for her failures to navigate the transportation package or exert any efforts towards accountability www.wweek.com/news/2026/10...

Many of these fatalities, you'll note, are on ODOT-owned roads (Barbur, Powell, etc) meanwhile, ODOT continues to demand billions of dollars for massive freeway expansions on roads that have never had a single traffic fatality.

this is of course the next move after we officially kill the proposed $3 billion rose quarter freeway expansion that intends to double the width of I-5 into the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School, instead of removing the freeway it entirely and replacing it with homes transit and parks

Sort of insane fact about how broken US urban planning is—America now spends more building *just the lights for roads and highways* than on all subways & ground mass transit combined Spending on roadway *pavement* is 18x transit spending

This fails to consider that one more lane will fix it

Last week, ODOT breathlessly congratulated itself on completing a highway expansion project near Salem "on time and on budget." only problem is, the project was actually $20 million over budget. They just lied about it. @cityobservatory.bsky.social reports: cityobservatory.org/this-is-what...

8600+ Oregonians took the Governor's survey on what they want to see in a future transportation package. What a surprise! People want to fix the damn roads, expand transit service and build safer streets. Oregonians are not clamoring for ODOT to spend billions on freeway expansions. #orleg #orpol

Probably a good time to cut statewide transit funding and spend billions on freeways #orleg #orpol

Did you know if you build fewer/smaller highways you have to spend less on maintenance? Crazy I know. I will never understand why we pour billions into the most space and cost inefficient transportation option, saddling us with massive future maintenance debt, while public transit gets crumbs.

Oregon's roads are in *terrible* shape - among the worst in the country! - and yet Governor Kotek, the Oregon Legislature and ODOT are still thinking about spending *billions* on a single hwy project to double the width of I-5 instead of maintaining our state's existing roads and bridges. enough!

Don't want to spend your life stuck in traffic congestion? Turns out, the best way to prevent traffic congestion is to stop building billions of dollars of miles of freeway and instead invest in transit.

Cannot wait for 2029 when President Ocasio-Cortez signs an infrastructure bill that dedicates $100 billion to reviving the Reconnecting Communities program, with stipulations it can only be used on projects that actively tear down urban freeways and replace them with parks, transit social housing

There are like 5 open positions on the Portland Plannign commision, and over the next year its gonna be doing some of its most important work ever. You need to apply 🫵 (I would myself, but I'm in school) You have the weekend before applications close. www.portland.gov/bps/planning...

eliminating I-5 for a week seems to have caused remarkably minimal disruption to Portland's regional traffic flows. so why again do ODOT, Governor Kotek and the Oregon Legislature think we should spend three billion dollars (!) to literally double the width of lanes on I-5 through North Portland?

Want to preview a brand new Airo train? Sign up for a public tour!

there's no way this isn't a better investment that spending billions to widen urban freeways in the name of congestion mitigation

I'm just loving the lack of Carmageddon. #nomorefreeways @nomorefreewayspdx.com ❤️❤️❤️

City Observatory continues to keep up with the "carmageddon" beat - turns out, shutting down I-5 doesn't seem to be having hardly *any* impact on traffic congestion across the region. Why again does the Oregon Legislature want to spend over $3 billion to double the width of the RQ freeway? #orleg

We get the traffic congestion that we plan for. So why is Oregon spending tens of billions of dollars to add multiple miles of new lanes of freeway through the Rose Quarter and across the Columbia River? Every mile we build just ends up in more motorists polluting, stuck in gridlock.

funny how traffic just evaporates when freeways are shut down

Zoom-Zoom: Live traffic cameras run by KATU set to show "MONDAY GRIDLOCK" actually show traffic moving smoothly on I-5. (11:25AM, 14 Sept). Where's my carmaggedon? katu.com/news/survive...

$14B carbon bomb subsidy to help people evade sales taxes. nextcity.org/urbanist-new...

The first three Amtrak Cascades Airo trainsets will enter revenue service Sept. 30! www.kgw.com/article/news...

who wants to be the next director of ODOT?

Most state DOTs:

Meanwhile the Oregon Legislature is gearing up write a check for over two billion dollars to double the width of I-5 in the backyard of Harriet Tubman Moddle School, clogging the neighborhood with noise and air pollution.

Helluva time for the Oregon Legislature to defund public transit and continue to write checks for multibillion dollar freeway expansions! Quite an ~affordability agenda~ going on over here

You're invited to our Annual Member Celebration on Saturday, September 26th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM at White Owl Social Club! Enjoy food and drinks as we celebrate our accomplishments, recognize outstanding volunteers, and connect with fellow members. RSVP here: portlandneighborswelcome.org/events

The cuts to bus service will get worse without bold leadership from the Oregon Legislature next session. Will we restore and expand public transit? Or will we continue to give billions of dollars to ODOT for their costly, polluting freeway expansions? www.wweek.com/news/2026/08...

Trains! Not Lanes or Planes:

securing funding to maintain/improve/expand amtrak cascades service (instead of just letting odot spend all our money on the rose quarter freeway expansion) is just one of many, many fights we're going to have to have in the oregon legislative session for the transportation package next year

A look back at some of what was going on during transportation funding redirection conversations earlier this year: Why nearly $56M from ODOT wasn't used to balance budget | Exclusive www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/p... #orpol #orleg

The Oregon Legislature tapped a firm to audit ODOT that also gets $$ from contracts with ODOT -- and no one seems to see anything wrong with that. Great story from @anastasiacmason.bsky.social. #orleg #orpol www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/p...

please please please please take this survey and tell the legislature/odot that you want to see public transit, street safety and road maintenance prioritized over needless billions towards freeway expansion. www.cognitoforms.com/ODOT2/ROTVSu...

Shame on the governor for again using this manipulative framing. By categorizing the freeway expansion projects as “maintenance”, this push poll is gonna prioritize more lanes over maintaining the bus service we already have If you care about transit in Oregon fill out the damn survey

PORTLAND URBANIST ALERT! How should Oregon transportation dollars be spent? The Rebuilding Our Transportation Vision Workgroup is reviewing transportation needs, funding challenges, priorities, and tradeoffs to provide recommendations that will inform action in the 2027 legislative session.

"How much is too much?" No More Freeways co-founder @chrissmith.us testified today to the Oregon Transportation Commission about the latest $3 billion cost estimate for ODOT's proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion.

"Nearly $56 million in unobligated funds that could have been used to help balance the Oregon Department of Transportation's budget never made it to the negotiation table in the 2026 legislative session, the agency told the Statesman Journal." www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/p...

This is why we can’t have transit

This is an emergency, we need our state leaders to act like it. We NEED transit, and improving transit service in the Portland metro supports the entire state because of the economic activity and tax revenue it generates. Fund TriMet!

Nothing short of a five alarm fire - to which the legislature is responding with “hmmm well let’s give ODOT three billion dollars to widen a freeway into the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School”

Really important piece of work on getting transit capital costs under control in the US. ifp.org/transit-abun...