The cost of widening and capping Interstate 5 through Portland’s Rose Quarter could now eclipse $2 billion, an acknowledgement that drew scathing comments from Oregon transportation commissioners this week.

The revised cost estimate for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project — the first since 2023 — shows a price tag of between $1.96 billion and $2.08 billion. That’s a sizable increase from the last estimate, which anticipated costs from $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion.

The news comes as the Oregon Department of Transportation is under increasing fire from lawmakers and the public for projects that have soared well beyond initial cost assumptions. The department is trying to convince the Legislature to approve billions in additional taxpayer money for highway megaprojects, including the Rose Quarter, that were supposed to be paid for with a 2017 spending package.

“We have a credibility problem right now,” Julie Brown, chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, said at a hearing on the new estimate Thursday. “I think that there’s a commitment from all of us to get us out of that situation to where we are credible.”

The Rose Quarter project would widen a bottleneck on Interstate 5 through the heart of Portland, adding one auxiliary lane in either direction and altering highway ramps. It would also build extensive improvements to the area around the interstate, including a massive highway cap meant to stitch together the historically Black Albina neighborhood, which was decimated when I-5 was built.

That cap was not contemplated when the project was initially approved by lawmakers in 2017, and has added extensive costs to an undertaking initially estimated at $500 million.

But the cap was incorporated when ODOT offered up its last cost estimate. The agency told transportation commissioners Thursday that the 2023 estimate didn’t take into account risks that construction would grow as expensive as it has, and used an assumed inflation rate that was too low — 3% instead of 4% — in the most recent estimate.

The updated estimate also assumes a new project timeline that delays construction of the highway cap, extending the estimated conclusion by one year, to 2034, and raising costs.

ODOT said it had begun looking at ways to keep the project under $2 billion. But some transportation commissioners said they expect costs will soar even higher because of tariffs enacted by the Trump administration.

“We need to have a plan for a $2.5 billion project,” said Commissioner Alicia Chapman. “I just want to be really blunt about that. Because we keep having these optimistic estimates.”

Commissioner Jeff Baker took issue with ODOT’s estimate of 4% inflation, calling it “way low.”

“We’re just asking for more agony as we go forward if we don’t take tariffs into consideration and get this done right,” Baker said, before taking ODOT to task for not being transparent about the cost increase. “We were making big decisions up here based on information we had, and we had bad information, and you had better information.”

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ODOT employees say they understand those concerns, and are taking action. Just months before construction is slated to begin on the first phase of the Rose Quarter project, the agency said it is restructuring its project teams to help major highway initiatives move forward.

‘No one at ODOT has been removed or even chastised’

Transportation commissioners aren’t the only ones lobbing criticisms.

Joe Cortright, a Portland economist who has long argued against adding lanes to I-5, said the cost increases aren’t surprising given ODOT’s history.

“There are no consequences that anybody experiences for going over budget,” Cortright said Friday. “No one at ODOT has been removed or even chastised. They commission frowns, they shrug, and go and give the same people more money.”

People who desperately want I-5 to get additional lanes aren’t impressed, either. State Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, an Albany Republican and trucking company owner, said the project amounts to a “broken promise” to truckers who agreed to a tax increase in 2017 to help it along.

“We took this huge increase and the Rose Quarter still hasn’t been built and we’re looking at this massive continued increase,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s costing taxpayers.”

News of escalating costs are especially unwelcome as the Rose Quarter project faces uncertain funding

The bulk of the $850 million ODOT says it’s secured for the project comes from a $450 million federal grant for the highway cap that could be in limbo under the Trump administration. Even with that money, the project now faces a possible funding gap of more than $1.1 billion.

State lawmakers this year are attempting to pass a major funding bill that could fill the hole. An initial plan unveiled by Democrats would hike or institute a wide swath of taxes and fees to raise more than $1 billion a year once fully implemented. That would allow the state to borrow billions to complete the Rose Quarter project and seismic upgrades for the Abernethy Bridge on Interstate 205 between Oregon City and West Linn.

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But the viability of the Democratic plan is an open question in Salem. The party technically has the three-fifths margin to pass new taxes on a party-line vote, but Democratic unanimity isn’t guaranteed, and leaders have suggested they will look for Republican buy-in on any bill.

A small group of Democrats and Republicans have been hammering out a bill behind closed doors. Meanwhile, many GOP lawmakers are publicly panning the Democratic proposal.

Transportation Commissioner Lee Beyer, a former Democratic state lawmaker himself, suggested Thursday that ODOT should await the results before committing to break ground in the Rose Quarter.

“Let’s not get started until we make sure that the Legislature acts in the next 30 days,” Beyer said. “If they don’t act on a revenue package, I don’t know where we get the money.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/09/odot-criticized-for-credibility-problem-as-rose-quarter-projects-price-tag-expected-to-top-2b/