Metro criticized Oregon’s Department of Transportation for an “inadequate” and “potentially misleading” analysis of its proposed $500 million project on Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter.

The regional government’s planning staff sent a 7-page letter to state and federal highway officials Monday, the deadline for public comment on an Environment Assessment released by the state in mid-February.

Metro took aim at the state’s assertion that the key I-5 bottleneck is one of the most crash-prone areas, calling that analysis “inadequate,” while characterizing the argument that adding auxiliary lanes doesn’t add or create more capacity on the freeway as “potentially misleading.”

“This statement is not objectively true,” Elissa Gertler, Metro’s director of planning, wrote regarding the auxiliary lanes issue. She wrote that “further environmental documentation” could shed light on “the scale of the change.” BikePortland first reported on Gertler’s letter.

Metro officials stopped short of calling for a more extensive federal review known as an Environmental Impact Statement to examine what the half-billion-dollar project might mean for the region’s air, soil, people and land – but the agency asked the state to go back to the drawing board on a number of fronts.

Metro joined a growing chorus of opponents challenging the project. The Portland Public Schools board last month called for a further study, citing concerns about the impact on air quality and construction on its nearby Harriet Tubman Middle School.

On Friday, Rukaiyah Adams, board chair for the volunteer group known as the Albina Vision Trust, which seeks a broader effort to spur development in a historically black neighborhood torn apart by the freeway and stadium district decades ago, criticized the project for not going far enough to right historic wrongs. She wrote that the development is “a once in a generation opportunity to build over the divisive, trenched highway and re-connect inner east Portland neighborhoods to the Willamette River. Let’s take the opportunity to fix the problem that was created when I-5 was originally constructed.”

Oregon transportation officials are planning an estimated $500 million project on a 1.7-mile stretch of I-5 through the Rose Quarter to add merging lanes, shoulders and reconfigure surface streets through the inner North and Northeast Portland neighborhood. The project calls for capping the freeway through a portion of that area, though those freeway caps are designed to be park-like spaces and aren’t expected to be developable. The project has a dedicated funding source through the 2017 state-wide transportation bill.

On Monday, a coalition of nonprofit environmental groups like the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and Climate Solutions wrote a joint response letter challenging the state to do more to study its proposal.

Their argument centered on the fact the report omitted any analysis of how the state’s proposed congestion pricing program – better known as freeway tolls – may affect traffic and future travel times through the Rose Quarter.

The state had projected that by 2045, carbon emissions would be slightly decreased if the Rose Quarter project was built and some travel times slightly reduced when compared to building nothing at the key bottleneck.

“It’s difficult to understand how ODOT can be certain about the accuracy of these traffic projections and this proposed expansion’s impact on travel times over the next 25 years without factoring in a forthcoming policy initiative likely to dramatically impact travel patterns,” the environmental coalition wrote, citing the tolling plan.

Tolls are anything but a done deal, as opponents plan a 2020 ballot measure to refer any road charging proposal to voters. The earliest potential tolls would arrive likely by 2024, and the Rose Quarter project would likely be under construction until 2027.

Metro’s planning leader also criticized the state for not exploring how to cover the freeway through the neighborhood – while also allowing for development above ground.

The regional government said those other options might include reinforcing the caps or “a tunnel-type structure” through the area.

“With more robust construction, capped areas could potentially support low-density construction that could activate what might otherwise be vacant, underutilized spaces,” Gertler wrote, “A tunnel-style treatment could potentially support more intensive development that would have a more transformative effect on the district.”

Adams, the chief investment officer at the Meyer Memorial Trust and the board chair of the Albina group, has pushed for just that.

“We are asked to trust that the highway covers, and the environmental remediation will be modified in ways that will be acceptable,” she wrote to the state, “but there Is no basis for trust,” she said, “certainly not from the history community that called lower Albina home.”

Lou Torres, an ODOT spokesman, said the agency would review all the public comments and work with federal officials to review them. The federal highway administration will likely inform the state of the next steps in the process “probably sometime later this spring,” Torres said.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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