After nearly a decade of planning and frequent political and financial obstacles, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is closer than ever to breaking ground on its I-5 Rose Quarter project—at least, part of it. ODOT’s full plans for I-5 through Portland’s Rose Quarter include widening the freeway in both directions and covering it with caps, which will reconnect the historically Black neighborhood that was bisected by I-5 construction in the 1960s. However, the agency’s...
They are the department of highways and roads. They have been incredibly successful in their adopted use of funneling resources to construction firms, increasing dependency on cars, and making our cities and state louder, dirtier and more dangerous. The people who work there think this is their mission and their funding is evidence of it. As each mile of road laid will only increase their need for funding and maintenance, they have a false sense of prophecy that it’s inevitable.
They don’t care about sidewalks, crosswalks, neighborhoods, bikers, or the people who inhabit or use these things–they are only a thing that gets in the way of them fulfilling their understood mission which is to funnel money to construction and development firms.
Fuck the Department of Roads. The sooner we call it that and/or rip them up and start fresh with mission and budgets the better.