One of the carefully crafted talking points in the sales pitch for the $450 million proposed Rose Quarter I-5 freeway widening project in Northeast Portland is the idea that it is somehow going to repair the damage to a community split asunder by a combination of road building and urban renewal in the 1960s. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has created the illusion that the slightly widened freeway overpasses it's building will be aesthetic “covers” that will somehow knit the neighborhood–historic center of the region’s African-American community–back together.

And political leaders have jumped on the bandwagon to make this point. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler went so far as claiming that the project:

...restores the very neighborhood that was the most impacted by the development of I-5 and that’s the historic African American Albina community.

And also following up in an interview:

One of the parts of this that nobody talks about, that frankly is the most interesting to me, is capping I-5 and reconnecting the street grid for the historic Albina community. And that of course is mostly a bicycle and pedestrian play. So I think this is being mischaracterized somewhat when people say, ‘Oh this is just a freeway expansion and it’s never going to meet its goals of congestion reduction.’ This is far from just focusing on just congestion reduction, this is an opportunity to restore one of our most historic — and not coincidentally — African American neighborhoods in this community.

City Commissioner Dan Saltzman added:

These new, seismically upgraded bridges will provide better street connections, improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities, a new pedestrian and bicycle-only bridge as well as lids (or covers) of the freeway that can provide much needed community space.ODOT is selling the project as a way of fixing the damage the freeway did to the area.

Public Policy and Community Affairs Manager Shelli Romero talked up the agency’s “environmental and public process” which will include:

...a robust understanding, research and engagement strategy of the historically wronged African-American community and other communities of color. We understand the historic inequity concerns and will engage all communities in this project.

Noble sentiments to be sure. But, in our view, this project does nothing to right the wrongs of freeway construction. Despite the high-minded rhetoric, widening the freeway repeats the same errors made a half-century ago and make the neighborhood’s livability worse. If these leaders are serious about redressing the historical wrongs done here, they could do much better.