A peer review of the Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement project’s environmental assessment has been made public, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced this week. A copy of the review can be viewed at i5rosequarter.org.
The Oregon Transportation Commission ordered the peer review in January in response to stakeholder concerns about potential negative air quality, noise and greenhouse gas emission impacts from the project.
The peer review supported ODOT’s findings about the impacts of the project, although it found that the information could have been better presented for a nontechnical audience.
The proposed project, most recently estimated to cost at least $715 million, would add “auxiliary lanes” to a roughly 2-mile segment of I-5 between the junctions with Interstates 84 and 405 in Portland, with the goal of easing congestion from merging traffic and decreasing the corridor’s accident rate.
