Oregon Gov. Kate Brown wants the state to take more time to study a $500 million project on Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter in Portland, and she specifically asked the transportation department to conduct a “full review” of how tolling at peak hours would work and potentially impact traffic through the area.

“We cannot build our way out of congestion by inducing greater demand on the system,” Brown wrote in a letter Monday to the Oregon Transportation Commission, the state’s top decision making body on road and freeway projects. “We must manage demand to reduce congestion while also reducing emissions consistent with our state’s greenhouse gas emission goals.”

Brown wrote that the proposed project’s elements -- expected to include merging lanes, shoulders and surface street improvement and a new bike and pedestrian-only bridge in the roughly one-mile area -- are things that the state should move forward with “along with demand management” like the state’s planned variable tolling program. “This approach has been proven to be effective in many jurisdictions around the world.”

The governor’s letter comes less than 24 hours before the commission was expected to vote on the freeway project. And it arrived days after Portland politicians asked the state to conduct a more extensive environmental impact statement, which would ensure a more robust study of how the project would affect air pollution and other factors through the city.

But Brown stopped short of calling for a full environmental impact study just yet, and she indicated that several specific project elements were not completed by the state transportation agency despite being requested more than six months ago. She echoed calls from Portland leaders for a third-party analysis of whether freeway covers spanning the interstate could be engineered to support buildings on top of them. The Oregon Department of Transportation had solicited such a study in May but no work has been completed yet.

The No More Freeways Coalition and Sunrise PDX, two groups that have opposed the project, issued a statement commending Brown but saying they will continue to push for further study. “The public deserves nothing short of full accountability, transparency and honest assessment of these impacts for a proposed half billion dollar investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure on the dawn of our hastily arriving climate emergency,” they wrote.

The commission held a lengthy recess Monday during an afternoon work session, as Chair Bob Van Brocklin said he was expecting a letter from Brown.

In the letter, Brown said she believes the freeway project, which was specifically included in the Legislature’s 2017 transportation package, is of “statewide importance.”

But she heard the feedback from Portland politicians in recent days and said that based on that feedback, she was requesting the commission “table the decision on the environmental review path for a few months."

If the project moves forward, Brown said it must rely on minority contractors. The governor said the state would need to be a significant partner if the redevelopment plan from the group known as the Albina Vision Trust comes to fruition in the area.

“Visions being generated are compelling,” she wrote of the project, which seeks to help address the historic urban renewal and destruction of the previous neighborhood that occurred when the freeway was built. And, she wrote, the project could “have the potential to address historical injustices.”

After receiving the letter, state commissioners seemed a bit taken aback by the new direction. The commission was expected to take public testimony and vote on the project Tuesday morning during the second day of its meeting in Lebanon.

“A few months delay until we hear from some other parties, I guess we can live with,” Commissioner Martin Callery, a North Bend resident, said. "But I sure don’t want it to last much longer.”

The commissioners will still accept public testimony on the project Tuesday if interested citizens show up to discuss it.

“We appreciate the governor’s comments and her leadership very much," said Van Brocklin, the commission chair. We will pay close attention to her recommendation as we meet tomorrow to consider the next steps for environmental review. We continue to look forward to hearing from those who wish to provide comment on the project.”

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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