A May 31 peer review of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Environmental Assessment for the proposed expansion of Interstate 5 in Portland’s Rose Quarter district found the document to be technically sound, but lacking in public communication quality. 

Currently forecast to cost between $715 million and $795 million, the project addresses a notoriously congested 1.8-mile stretch of I-5 through Oregon’s largest city through the addition of auxiliary lanes and shoulders. The plan also includes redesigned “lids” over sections of the freeway to provide room for public spaces, and improvements to adjacent streets that would reconnect neighborhoods separated when the freeway was originally constructed in the 1950s.