The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-06-09

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (15,905 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Bridge.

My my script says, good morning, but I think it's noon. So okay, so I'm going to call the meeting of the public works committee to order. It's Tuesday, June 9th at noon, and it's not diego.

It's diana.

Diana. Sorry. Would you please call the roll?

Sure.

Kanal here.

Koyama Lane here.

Green. Here.

Smith. Clark here.

And, claire, could you please read the statement of conduct?

Thank you. Chair. Good afternoon, and welcome to the meeting of the public works committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland.gov/council/agenda/pubc works committee or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted. When your time is over, the chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. Please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you. Claire. So, colleagues, today we have a much shorter agenda than usual due to a variety of limitations. But our discussion today really centers on I. Five the rose quarter improvement project. So diana, would you m tip with our agreed upon scope and accurately reflect the rescinded $382 million in grant funding in may, June and July. We are going through stip and m tip update process and amendments. The otc did approve the stip amendment in may, and we've started the process last week with metro's t, pac j pact and council presentations in June and vote in June and July.

I'm going to have to interrupt you right now. I really apologize, but we're having a problem.

We the broadcasting problem just got resolved, so we should be good now. Thank you so much. Apologies for the interruption.

While you've got everyone interrupted, can I make an appeal to maybe clarify some of the acronyms that you're. Because I think a lot of folks following along may not necessarily know. Thanks.

Yeah. So the stip is a statewide transportation improvement plan. And then metro has a metropolitan transportation improvement plan. So our projects go through both of those approval processes so that they are aligned both at the state level and at the regional level, and with the updates to the scope and funding. We're going through this process to update what is currently programed in both of those plans. And so for metro, they have two committees and then their metro council that we go through both a we call it a two touch approach. So we have a presentation first with each one of those councils and then a vote in July with eventually with the council final adoption. So then shifting back to construction, we do have the two closures scheduled for this summer, the first closure, and we'll dive a lot more detail into these later in the presentation. But the first closure is the 14 hour closure of both directions of I-5 northbound and southbound in the project area. This is a weekend overnight closure in July. And then there is a second closure that will mostly focus on today. Is the five week closure, up to five week closure of I-5 southbound starting September 11th. So then I mentioned our pmg, our project management group, and I want to provide a little more information on the pmg because as I said in the last slide, the pmg has been instrumental in moving the project forward this year. The pmg is executive level leadership coordination forum for the rose quarter project. It brings together leadership from ODOT, the project team, the city metro, albina vision trust, Oregon trucking association, the blazers, and community members from our historic albina advisory board and the community oversight advisory committee so that the project can move forward with greater transparency and alignment and shared understanding specifically from the city. I want to highlight the contributions of PBOT director williams, patricia diefenderfer from bureau of planning and sustainability and amy nagy from prosper Portland director wesley from prosper Portland will be joining the pmg in June, and we look forward to his engagement and discussions on the broader development of the district and the area, and how the rose quarter project is just one part of that broader development. As I mentioned in the status update, the primary focus of the project management group in January through April was getting alignment on the scope of phase one b and one c, and then starting in April and may, we began a deeper conversation on funding strategy, aligned partner messaging and outreach so the project can stay coordinated as we seek funding for the remainder of the work to complete the project in full. Assisting the pmg in this work is a group called America forward. So the rose quarter project was selected as one of three projects nationally for America forwards technical assistance. America forward provides value to the project through their nationally recognized expertise and is led by former undersecretary to chris. Former u.s. D.o.t. Undersecretary christopher coes, former Washington secretary of transportation roger miller, and former u.s. D.o.t. Advisor julianne rhinebeck. We've. As a group, we've discussed several ways to continue to strengthen the project's approach. And one of the primary themes that the project management group has recently assembled around is the shift of thinking of all the development and economic opportunity that's happening in the district, and not just focusing on the transportation project itself. This is still in development, but we're working with America forward to stand up, a group to provide leadership around the broader district as a whole, with representation from everything that's going on in the area. This is similar to what's been done in the city in the past for things such as the Portland streetcar and pearl district development and other projects and big developments. We're also working as a as a group on a presentation for governor kotek's transportation vision work group that's working towards a development of recommendations for transportation funding in the 2027 legislative session. So there's a lot of work, a lot of work ahead and a lot of work to look forward to with our project management group. And with that, I'll turn it over to david.

So I think a critical aspect to this project is really understanding the purpose and need and the solution or benefits that this project offers, not just at a local level, but a regional and statewide level, and to a certain extent, a national level as it relates to freight mobility. So from a safety perspective, this location has some of the worst crash rates in the state. On the interstate system, it is the top congestion bottleneck where we have the convergence of I-5, I-84, and i405 and Portland. This location has the fourth worst congestion and seventh worst traffic amongst 49 major metropolitan areas across the country. The improvements that.

Could you say that one more time?

Okay, so Portland has the fourth worst congestion and seventh worst traffic amongst 49 major metropolitan areas. And so in addition to the safety elements, we're looking at the operational piece of improving traffic flow. There's a freight mobility element to this as well as a community development and economic development. And going to the next slide, there's also a restorative justice element. So when the interstate was constructed in the 60s, you can see on the left a vibrant neighborhood of albina. And after the interstate system was constructed, it really split and split the community, the neighborhood, and displaced many of the businesses and residents of the area. So this is an artist rendering of what the. Development could look like once the project is fully built out. So having the covers in place, the covers, being able to support development of businesses and potential housing. We've worked with our partners including albina vision trust, city of Portland, TriMet, Oregon metro, the trailblazers and others to look at this vision and really turn it into reality. And as monica mentioned, there's a lot of other investment taking place. This is truly fertile ground. And partnering with those other organizations and agencies to make this vision turn into reality. We're adopting new and innovative approaches to make this possible. As monica mentioned, we're partnering with America forward. They're working with other communities across the country to look at best practices for how to solidify projects like this, and also how to identify and secure funding at the local, state and national levels. The future of the albina is being shaped by a growing network of investments from our partners, and the partners have all stepped up, as monica mentioned, with the pmg group and the collaboration and the opportunities to leverage and partner in terms of that vision, the I-5 rose quarter project is a foundational investment that supports these efforts. You know, from a transportation perspective, from a safety perspective, from reducing congestion and restoring the neighborhood connections, we're also making significant investments to the surface streets. So the walking, the biking, the transit by constructing safer crossings. And this highway cover will help again. Re connect elements of the surface improvements. So I mentioned economic and freight mobility benefits. So this does this project does address on the highway system the 27th worst freight bottleneck in the country. We know that Portland is the economic engine and hub for the state. And so efficient and timely and reliable movement of goods is critical. The Oregon trucking association is a strong champion to advocate for this project. It's going to save drivers nearly 2.5 million hours of travel time. The hours of congestion here are pretty much throughout the entire day. And then this is not just a project in terms of the outcome, but there are what I like to say the process is just as important as the outcome. So there's small business elements. We got a lot of local businesses working, but we also have a lot of local workers that are working on this project through apprenticeship programs. And so building career opportunities and building capacity so that as they are able to work on this project, get that mentoring and family wage jobs and wealth creation, that they're able to work on other projects for the city and the state. And so, yeah, a lot of growth opportunities. And really, this will be a catalyst for development, both from the public sector and private sector. So the overall vision and scope of this project is illustrated on the slide. So number one is the full build out of the highway cover. There'll be a new crossing at hancock street that will be on top of the cover. That's number two. And then numerous multi-modal facility improvements such as for bicyclists, pedestrians, as well as transit users. And the streetcar will be going through here as well. We're also looking at new connectivity with the construction of a pedestrian bicycle bridge over the industry. That's number four. And you can see that in the teal color. And then certainly we'll be adding lanes and wider shoulders in each direction to really improve the operation of interstate through this corridor. And then lastly, we're looking to relocate the I-5 southbound off ramp today. The off ramp terminates at broadway, and we want to move that further to the south. So you don't have cars from the interstate entering into the middle of the cover area. So the construction that is underway. So monica mentioned that we broke ground last August. We are working on some stormwater facilities to address the runoff as part of the Portland harbor agreement. So we have both a a water quality detention facility there, as well as some stormwater detention facilities under the I-5 I four five interstate area. And then on the main line, the plan is to work on some seismic retrofit under the structure, there's bridge work, and then we have the extension of an existing existing ox Lane. So currently there's an ox Lane between the moda onramp and id four. We're looking to extend that ox Lane to the morrison bridge. And so part of the project will also preserve the existing concrete deck. So redecking the concrete this summer. And that works. What monica will speak to as it relates to the closure, about 2000ft of concrete that's really just in bad shape. And then looking at installing a sign bridge that will help drivers that are unfamiliar with the area to navigate through this district. As I mentioned, the process is just as important as the outcome. And, you know, with every project, there are stories to be told. And we have a video here that. Demonstrates the impact that these projects have on small businesses and workers. And so there's also a link to this video on youtube that should be in your packet. So monica, I'll let you go ahead and run the video.

I've been doing this for over 30 years, going across the brooklyn bridge when I was like six years old, I seen these sparks off to the side and I was like, dad, what are those fireworks? And he was like, that's the guy welding. I was like, well, that's what I want to do. I want to be a welder. I met jeff about a year ago. Jeff was talking about the bridge project, and I've loved bridges ever since. I went across that bridge. Six years old job. And it's a great opportunity for me and for us in the community. Raymore not just coming from a business standpoint. Jeff moreland, he's under the headship of the supreme being of the universe, you know, spiritual, really sincere in helping people saying, I'm going to give you a shot. Let's do it. I see employment by the community, for the community. I see growth in the community. This is home. Portland is home. I love helping my community, training them in welding. Take the test now. You're making $35 an hour, right? So they're doing the same for me. Bringing it back full circle.

And I'll have to say. Oh, by the way, we also used a local media group.

Sorry.

We used a local small business to create this video. But I'll have to say that certainly as public agencies, we have the ability to set targets and goals, but to achieve success stories like this, you have to have a contractor that is committed. And having the hamilton team, in partnership with FEMA construction, we've been able to advance apprenticeship, hit our targets for minority workers and small business and apprenticeship and taro and db. So and that's one powerful aspect with a construction manager, general contractor delivery method, what's known as cmg is we have a lot more flexibility and influence on, on not just the what, but the how.

Thanks, david. I see a couple hands risen. We're going to shift from this into the closure. So if we want to take questions, okay.

I think we can wait. Okay. Our questions. Let's keep going.

Keep going. Okay. So now shifting into the construction closures this summer and fall, you may have seen in the news and have likely heard starting in early may, we had a news release announcing this to the public around the five week closure that will start in September and run through October. So I'm going to walk through the work we've been doing, how we got to the and arrived at the construction approach, what we anticipate the traffic impacts to be and how we're getting the word out and our ongoing coordination to make sure this is successful as possible. So starting really quick, before I dive into that five week closure, as I mentioned before, we do have a 14 hour closure this summer. So this closure will be a full closure of northbound and southbound lanes in the rose quarter project area. To install that sign bridge that david mentioned in the scope slide for safe navigation. Once construction is complete, this closure is planned to be 14 hours and will start at 10 p.m. On a Saturday and open up no later than 12 p.m. On Sunday, but we will reopen sooner if the work is completed quicker. So then, diving into the big closure this fall, we the work that we're doing. So we are doing structural repairs to the surface and surface replacement of the I-5 southbound roadway in this area. So this section of road was built 60 years ago with the construction of I-5 and the concrete bridge deck in this area was last replaced in 1985. So it is well past its 25 year design life. And as you're probably aware, driving through this area, there's significant potholes and cracks and ruts and damage to the surface. And if repairs are delayed any further, there is a worry that this bridge deck damage can further lead to more damage to the bridge structure itself, which is more costly. Repairs in the future and longer closures once complete, the replaced bridge surface is designed to last 25 years or more, so it'll be a long time before it'll need to be replaced again. And this area, and I'll mention this a little bit further in the options that we considered. But this area of I-5 is unique and difficult to work in because it is very narrow and only two lanes. It is 38ft wide, so there's not very wide shoulders. And I'll expand a little bit more on how that kind of went into our decision making. First, just as an example, you may recall, may or may not recall in 2024, a hole formed in I-5 and an emergency closure was needed at 4:45 p.m. To repair the bridge deck during peak rush hour traffic. So the picture on the right is from underneath the bridge structure near the 405 interchange. Looking up through a hole in the bridge. So these kinds of last minute emergency repairs and closures will be more common. If the necessary repairs aren't completed this fall. And so here there's no sound to this. We just have a time lapse video that shows a bridge deck repair in rural Oregon. Much smaller scale, but this helps demonstrate the work that we will be doing in the process. So first, the team will implement traffic control and signage and the communications. You can see they're removing the existing deck. It's about a little over two inches of concrete gets removed by sections. So with a micro milling machine and then coming back with a water blasting machine, imagine an extremely high powered pressure washer. And then they go back by hand and repair weaker areas of the deck where there may be holes and maybe reinforcement is exposed. This one was again, just a smaller closure overnight. So I'll let the the night time go. So then. After the deck repairs themselves are complete, a new concrete overlay will be placed. You can see here they're doing final cleaning of the deck and then starting to pour the concrete overlay. Once the overlay is poured. So once the concrete is poured and finished, you can see they're placing blankets and curing compound. So this will cure for a few days. We will install bridge expansion joints between the between each bridge and then on the rose quarter project. You don't see it here, but on the rose quarter project, we will do a saw cut, a new concrete texture for skid resistance, then eventually stripe and reopen to traffic. A few things I wanted to highlight that you can see in this video. Crews will be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During the closure. They'll maximize concurrent work as much as possible. You can see a lot of equipment and people working simultaneously on different. To get this work done as fast as possible, we'll have multiple machines, multiple crews. Our team has worked with ODOT engineers and others using to use the latest technology in rapid curing concrete to get things opened up as quick as possible, and really, every hour of the schedule is accounted for. And they'll be, you know, times at the end where the concrete is curing for the last pour. But other than that, there is work going 24 over seven. And like I mentioned, we looked at different options. So we looked at three different options when evaluating how to approach this work. So first single Lane closure. And this was deemed really infeasible due to that limited width in the area. There's not enough width in this area of I-5 to safely have crews working in one Lane have a barrier, a safety barrier in between the crews and the traveling public, and then have enough room for the traveling public to travel through that area. We also have safety risks if there wasn't a barrier there and just cones, you run the risk of traffic and the workers coming into contact with each other, and that is a very serious risk. There's also concerns potential poor concrete quality as you can on bridges with live traffic. There's vibration and pouring concrete next to that vibration. There's a potential for poor concrete quality. If it was feasible we did look at duration. It wouldn't be nearly four months longer than the scheduled complete closure and would add roughly four and a half to $7 million in added cost. We we looked at weakened closures as a second option, and that was ruled out due to major inefficiencies. As you can imagine, setting up and taking down major traffic control every weekend and not being able to get a lot of work done in one weekend. We also had the same concrete quality and durability concerns from for having multiple small concrete pours with multiple joints between those concrete pours. And then the biggest reason this was ruled out, this would extend across two summers of full weekend closures every weekend for two summers and and add roughly 6 to $9 million in additional project costs. So ultimately, we landed after a lot of consideration on a continuous five week closure. And this approach is the cheapest, the fastest, the safest for the workers, and provides the highest quality concrete and longest lasting bridge deck that will live up to its 25 year design life. Now, shifting into what the closure will look like. As I mentioned earlier, the closure is scheduled to begin on Friday, September 11th and will last up to five weeks. We'll open up sooner if the work is completed sooner and starting from the north. So on the right side of the screen is a graphic showing the closure and the detour routes. So starting from the north of that graphic, the southbound off ramp from I-5 to i405 will be open. And I'll expand on the next slide, but that is the primary detour route. The on ramps from greeley avenue and i405 northbound to I-5 southbound. Those will be closed. We will be leaving one Lane open of I-5 southbound to the broadway weidler exit for local traffic going to events at moda center memorial coliseum, the convention center or local access to that area of the city. I-5 southbound will be completely closed from the broadway weidler exit to the I-84 interchange, and this is where the work will be taking place. You can see in that hatched work zone area at the south side of the graphic. Both directions of I-84 will remain open to traffic, and westbound traffic will be able to get on to both I-5 north and I-5 southbound from I-84 westbound. So now looking at the signed detour routes that will be in place during the closure. So for traffic that's driving through the area and continuing on I-5 south, they will be. The signed detour route will be on to the i405 over the fremont bridge, and then merge back into I-5 southbound at the south end of the city for traffic that needs to go eastbound on 84, they'll be detoured as well onto 405, then onto I-5 north and 84 eastbound. For. As I mentioned, the I-5 southbound traffic that is going to the broadway weidler exit. So into the events area will. That will remain open for regional traffic that doesn't need to access downtown Portland and is coming from the north. We are encouraging folks to take 205. They'll be. Signage up at the I-5 205 split for folks that can avoid the area altogether. But this, you know, and we recognize that this these are the signed detour routes. There will also be traffic as folks use google maps and other things to navigate that will spill over into the city streets. So this will not just be impacting the freeway system, will be impacting the local streets as well, and could be some of the worst traffic that the region has seen in a long time. Travel could take 2 to 3 times longer, is what our traffic modeling is currently showing and be at the worst at peak congestion hours, extending all the way up into Washington over the I-5 bridge. And we know this is going to be tough for everyone. Travelers, freight businesses in the area. And we do, as I mentioned, find expect people to find many parallel routes that will stretch beyond the interstate into into city streets. And so we are working, we have been doing some coordination. We have a lot of coordination continuing with PBOT and other bureau staff to make sure we are prepared and have plans during the closure and can make it as least impactful as possible. Understanding that there is going to be an impact during the closure. We are using multiple strategies for traffic management. During the closure, one of them will be clearing incidents so that they don't create compounding impacts. So traffic areas across the region will be monitored. During the closure. We'll have incident response vehicles present at different closure and detour route points and increased incident response staff available to provide assistance to disabled vehicles and help keep lanes open and operating as smooth as possible during the detour. We're also, as I mentioned, working with city staff on smoothing traffic flow on local streets, adjusting ramp metering and signal timing, and collaborating, collaborating on traffic operations, monitoring and safety during the closure or ahead of the closure and operations during the closure. The graphic on the right shows all the locations in Oregon of variable message signs. We are also coordinating with our counterparts in washdot in Washington with Washington dot to notify travelers, as I said, up at the 205 and I-5 split and along I-5 coming down through Vancouver. And lastly, we're asking everyone to plan ahead. Many drivers have no other option than to come through this area during the closure. But if there's some people that do have flexibility in their travel plans, whether that's traveling during off peak hours, using public transit, or planning alternate routes so that the system will function better for everyone. That will will help. And I didn't mention earlier, but the traffic modeling is based on nobody changing the traffic patterns or their behaviors. And so what we've seen in the past with these larger traffic closures is people do find alternate times or alternate routes, and traffic still is bad, but ends up being better than what we've modeled. But, you know, we're, we're planning for the worst and hoping for the best in this. So we're working with our team to address, you know, things as if no one were, were changing their, their traffic behaviors. And then switching over to outreach. So we've been building our communications, outreach and engagement approach based on past closures in the region, as well as examples of other projects in our neighboring states to the north and south that have had successful managing success in managing and mitigating some of the traffic by executing a good communication strategy. So our goal overall is to create many touches and reduce surprises with the closure, using lessons learned from those previous closures and other projects. We want everyone to be as prepared as possible and plan for the impacts during the closure. Recently, we've been coordinating, as I mentioned, with washdot and their team doing the long duration closures up in the seattle area. On the revive I-5 project, we're preparing a range of materials to share out through these outreach efforts and working with people in a variety of ways. We'll be attending local events, engaging the media, distributing information through ODOT channels, and using ODOT social media, as well as paid advertising campaign and and collaborating with our partner agencies and other organizations throughout the city to get this message out. You can see on the screen our outreach schedule, it'll, you know, it's ongoing and it'll be continuing through the closure. And after the closure, we will be doing outreach and coordination throughout the summer, which will include mailers and social media and advertising campaign, meeting with the community organizations and ongoing touch points with our government and partner audiences. We'll also be sharing a messaging toolkit and graphics, and I will. That's a little bit more on the next slide with these audiences that you can, as I mentioned, distribute and amplify this message through as many channels as possible. And then during the closure, we'll be continuing the ongoing communications campaign. And after the closure, we will follow up on how everything went because we will be doing the northbound closure next year. So we want to make sure that we understand the lessons learned and and make improvements for next year as well. This is just some of logos of some of the outreach that we've done. We've done a lot of outreach and coordination, but there's a lot more to be done in the next several months, both at the communications and the technical level. We started outreach in spring 2025 to a variety of partner organizations, local government, transit agencies, event centers, hospital emergency services, freight and business organizations. And we also, right before the public launch, hosted two webinars for local, regional and federal elected officials to attend. And then this is a lot of words, but we have a lot more outreach and technical coordination planned over the coming months leading up to the closure, including outreach to local commissions and committees, partner agencies, major events, community organizations, neighborhood organizations and faith groups, businesses associations, freight distributors, and large employers in the region. And at a technical level. We also have ongoing coordination with, as I mentioned, with PBOT, emergency responders and other bureaus within the city and project partners to make sure everyone's operations run as smooth as possible during the closure, understand that understanding that there will be an impact to operations while I-5 is closed. And I can't emphasize enough the importance of staying, staying informed, and sharing the details of the closure with everyone in the region. As I mentioned, our team has developed a toolkit and we'll be adding more information to that toolkit soon. We have a link on our website that we've been sharing with, with all of our partners who have the ability to share fact sheets, share sample newsletters that can get integrated into newsletters, graphics, and a whole list of resources. People can also sign up for notifications on our project website, and reach out with any questions or concerns that the team will work to address. And I've listed rose gerber, who is here in the audience today. She is our public information officer and is our point of contact for communications. She's also happy to take any questions or any be our single point of contact for communications. And so that concludes my presentation and happy to open it up for questions and happy to go back to any slide if we need.

Thank you monica. Thank you. David. Great overview. I'm still in shock when I think about this and the impact. And I know we're going to have a lot of questions. And for you and others, just to note too, that we have director millicent williams in the audience also. And caitlin ref, I think to answer questions, should we want to get into PBOT related questions, but my head's just spinning about 405. Oh boy. And the alternative routes just it's already it's bad there. Now it's just I it's really hard for me to imagine. I'd love to see a map in the future of all the. What you're fantasizing as the parallel routes and what that means, but with that, we'll we'll just turn to my colleagues. I think councilor Koyama Lane had her hand up first.

Thank you. Chair. First, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to highlight how the highway cover that part of the project is so important and reconnects and repairs some of the harms that community has experienced. I'm very supportive of that, and I also have some questions about this project that have been informed by different conversations I've had with community members. I'm hearing concerns from community about when the ivr tolling commences, that diversion onto I 205 and surrounding surface streets will cause congestion and safety. Air quality concerns. Can one of you explain or share what data ODOT is planning to collect during this I-5 south closure? It seems like it's an opportunity to gather some real data to track behaviors and get information.

Yeah. So with this closure, we will have real time data as well as historical data. So we're currently collaborating with the region and headquarters about what is the data we want to capture in terms of the volume of traffic. The diversion was traffic going. We're still trying to figure out what what potential reports will want to pull and then share that with ibr. I'm sure ivr is going to be very interested. So there's going to be immense amounts of data and we're currently strategizing. How do we use that data in a way that can inform future, current and future conversations?

Great. And if there are community members or even us up here that want to follow that, what type of data you're going to end up gathering, how would we do that?

I think at this point, I think following up with rose gerber. Right now, I think this is the third time we've been asked about data and information. And so as we have more information, we can reach out to those that have interest in the data and what reports are made available. Certainly, we're going to be also collaborating with the ibr team.

And related to.

And collaborating with millicent and her team.

That's wonderful. Related to data collection, do we know how many serious injuries and deaths have occurred in the rose quarter, say, in the last five years?

I don't have that data offhand, but that's certainly data we can pull together in terms of minor accidents to severe injury to fatalities. But the chart that we had earlier this location is in the top 5 or 10% of what we call the safety priority index system. So every time there's an accident, the individuals submit dmv records. We pull that data together statewide and then look at where there's the most frequency and severity of crashes. And so this location has again, top five or top 10%. So we can get that information to you.

And are you separating out the difference between like vision zero serious injuries and fatalities from like fender benders?

I don't know that we make a distinction between vision zero. I think the way the data works for the state system is a minor fender bender or severe injury, or going to the emergency room, or there's a fatality.

Okay. And maybe this is a question for someone more at the city, but I'm wondering if someone can speak to funding and thinking about portland's 2027 legislative priorities, respect to, you know, funding this. And there's a lot of other funding gaps for transportation. How does this project play a role in that? Not sure. Chair, who's the exact person to bring up for that one? It's director williams or.

Well, clearly we're going to have that at the top of our legislative agenda for more funding for transportation generally. But you're talking about the split.

Yeah. And how much does this does this project take up all of that, or is there going to be room for other priorities as well?

Maybe that's an unfair question for director williams. I'm not sure. But do you want to take a stab at it?

I'll take a stab. Good afternoon. Millicent williams, director of Portland bureau of transportation. Thank you so much. Counselors and committee councilor Koyama Lane, to answer your question, currently, the city is not an investor in this project. It does not mean that we would not be an investor and that we would not work together with ODOT to identify funding sources to fill the gap. How we would prioritize this would be informed by city leadership in terms of how we would approach it with the appropriate folks at the state level in the. I don't want to say advocacy, but in our efforts to identify the best ways to address what we recognize to be a significant shortfall, but currently, zero investment. But both david kim and I, as well as monica and several others at ODOT, former director chris strickler. We've all talked about how we might be able to be a different partner in this moment, recognizing the gravity of the moment.

Yeah. And I'm not even saying that the thinking about the city putting in money, but just thinking about how when we go and advocate is this kind of our transportation project, this freeway project, we, we saw, you know, safe routes to schools get cut. Is it is this kind of our are we using all that up? And then my last question is just kind of at this point, looking at this project, I am hearing more and more constituents ask, are there alternatives at a lower cost? Are there any cost savings approaches or alternatives that can be explored at this stage?

Can I just say something at this point is that we're right now we're just looking at what is this one c or one b? We're just looking at signage resurfacing store stormwater. We're not looking at the full package here. We're just looking at the kind of the asset management, the potholes on I-5, if you will. I mean, this is just a very preliminary piece of taking care of what we own as a state. We're not talking yet. I mean, we don't have the pathway to the cover yet, I don't think, because some of that money has been pulled. So right now we're just taking care of what we own as a state. Am I right in making that assumption?

So so, chair Clark, the project we have today, there's a seismic element for resiliency. The bridge deck preservation. But then there's some minor widening that's going to take place to or barrier adjustments to incorporate that extension of the Lane and then the sign bridges. So this project is really a critical element to the rest of the project. The challenge that we faced is with the rescission of the funding and no transportation funding package. There was not the funding to do the starting of the cover work. We do have design funds right away, funds and utility relocation funds to initiate design for phase one c, which would get us to about 30% of the cover. And so the big ask of the legislature is going to be funding the construction phase of one c, and then we'll have phase two, which is the remainder of the cover work and construction of the auxiliary lanes. So you are correct. This is really an asset management seismic resiliency with a little bit of operational improvement and teamed up for the next phase, the push to get as much construction done today as possible is really a cost risk management. The longer we wait, the more it's going to cost. And so we're trying to leverage all the construction dollars available while we have a contractor on board. Anything to.

Know? Just that, that last question, which is kind of bigger, you know, are there conversations around any other alternatives or approaches at this point?

So we went through a robust environmental assessment. So the scope of the project has been set. So if there's any changes to scope, whether it be a scope additional reduction, we'll have to evaluate whether that impacts the environmental documents. We are evaluating value engineering. So are there ways to do things differently. Disclosures is a good example right of we looked at different options and alternatives, looked at the impact, looked at the cost and landed on the option of closing I-5 for up to five weeks. We're working with our design teams. We're working with the contractor evaluating. Are there other alternatives and options to reduce cost or to limit impacts or to deliver faster? And that's the beauty of cmg is you actually have the contractor that's going to build the project in working with the design team. And so we've gone through a series of value engineering sessions, and we've identified some opportunities and we can get really technical here, but we've identified some opportunities and are incorporating those opportunities into the design.

Thank you. Councilor I think it's hard right now we're confronted with the closure and and what that means. And, and it's really taking care of what we own as a state. But you're right, it's in a larger environment, a larger project that's coming. So I appreciate you bringing that up, because this is just one step forward to something larger. And there's still lots of questions about how we're going to finance that. But I think right now, for me personally, it's like, how, how do we avoid shutting down the city completely with this project, this first phase? That's what really concerns me. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, chair Clark, thanks so much for the presentation today. I just have a few questions to help me kind of understand. I think, what would be typical project status update parameters or pieces of information. So my first question is, and before I get going, I echo councilor Clark. I, I'm also concerned about the immediate impact and I've got some questions later that might also be relevant for director williams as well. But what's the current estimate for the total cost of this project? I know we're talking about one phase of it, but that is a critical input into the broader cost picture.

Yeah. So we thank you, councilor Green. We are working on an updated cost estimate right now. So the last time the project was estimated was for was assuming the reconnecting communities grant and the 2027 legislative session or 2025 apologies legislative package that would have funded that work and the associated schedule with that. So now that we have agreed upon scope as of a couple of months ago for phase one c and a delivery schedule to seek funding in 2027, we are updating our cost estimate associated with that delivery schedule and anticipate that to be coming out at the end of the summer. So the current published cost estimate is, is 2 million or $2 billion plus or minus. But we anticipate that to go up because the delivery schedule has pushed out.

Okay. That is helpful. Thank you. And so I'm interested you had a few bullet points on your early slides about just the interaction effect with the reconnecting neighborhoods grant, which is a really important piece of this. I echo the support for capping this part of the freeway as an effort to sort of reimagine a new vision for albina, if you will. But but from what I understand is because we did lose the grant, we are now looking to amend stip and mtp to try to find ways to backfill that. I'm curious, and I understand you've got it laid out on your. Your may otc has already done their part, and later this month or next month, you expect the amendment to phase b and mtp to. That conversation will unfold. But what would be the impact to the. I mean, those dollars, those amendments, would some sort of suggest reprioritizing things, if I'm not mistaken, because you don't just creating new resources, right? So what are we not funding? And maybe this is an unfair question for you, but I'm curious to know, what are we not funding by by funding that and amending these plans?

Yeah. So I'll start and then fill in. David. So we worked this was part of, as I mentioned, in December, the transportation commission gave us direction to move forward with a phase one b, but wanted more partner coordination to get that alignment on what that scope was. And so we worked with our pmg partners to look at the remaining scope of phase one that we had all agreed was the next work. So that includes the first third of the cover work on I-5 between the broadway interchange and 84. We looked at the remaining funding that we did have. So roughly $170 million is what we had remaining in construction funding and worked with our design team and our contractor and our partners to look at what we could build with that amount of money. Unfortunately, we could not start the highway cover. That is a large chunk associated with the roughly $380 million that was rescinded. So we agreed that the next phase of work will be the work, what we're calling phase one b. So it's it's on I-5 from I-84 in primarily the northbound direction work over the rose quarter transit center, and at that I-84 to I-5 interchange merge and then progressing up towards the highway cover. So we as a project management group and partner group prioritized that work to, as david said, continuing making the best use of the funding that we have available. But key to that was a commitment to work together to seek funding for phase one c, which is the work that completes the first phase, completes the first third of the highway cover. Part of that is we do, as david mentioned, have $30 million in right of way funding available. And so as part of our commitment to doing to progressing that work and commitment to starting the highway cover and seeking funding for it, we are looking at early acquisition of those right of way parcels. There are some willing sellers in the area that could be used for construction, staging and progressing that work. And then, you know, showing our commitment as ODOT to move forward with the rest of that project.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. I want to move to the governor's transportation funding workgroup that you mentioned. I'd like to know if tolling or congestion pricing is back in consideration after being kind of taken off the table recently as part of this. Do you have any insights into that?

I this project team has not been close to those conversations. I believe there is a committee that's looking at the various funding options. Our focus is really just been on the rose quarter project and preparing ourselves to present and explain that project. So I'm not in a position to speak to what other potential funding opportunities or revenue sources there would be for the state.

We're going to have to go up the food chain.

We'll go we'll go up the food chain. Thank you. I just wanted to put it on the record that that was an important kind of sort of glimpse into what I think the city is going to need to. I mean, this committee even may perhaps need to discuss that, but I think we'll go up the food chain. Thank you. I think the last question I have is really sort of probably mostly appropriate for director williams, but I think I think what I'm worried about and there's no way to avoid this. I agree the full continuous closure is probably the most effective way to do this is the least costly approach. And you're going to get better results, most likely from it. But it will send traffic off onto these surface streets. I've I've driven these routes myself. I know where they are. They're right along the freeway wall and other sort of. There's interstate and the like. What I'm really concerned about, though, is then drivers are frustrated. And in that frustration, they sort of make moves that are reckless, dangerous, and put people at risk. And so what are we doing to kind of anticipate that and mitigate, you know, some of those traffic safety risks?

Thank you councilor. Our teams have been working closely together, of course, as has been shared, the information about the closure began to develop over a year ago, and that is when our teams were working most closely together about what we might do. As we've gotten closer to the date, our traffic teams are engaging to talk about the mitigation strategies. We didn't show the map that we're using as a baseline for information about where we anticipate some of that traffic will go, but those are the corridors where we'll be focusing some intentional efforts to ensure that there's appropriate not just signage, but adjustments to signal timing. Having cameras in place to ensure that we're monitoring what's happening so that we can, on the fly, make changes should we need to. And again, some of that really critical communication is what we're going to be depending very heavily on both from odot's perspective, but as city's perspective as well, making sure that people know what's happening and what's happening and how to best get around, even in those spaces where we anticipate there to be significant increased capacity that will need to handle. Again, those are the corridors where we'll be paying the most attention and making those most significant changes. It's not just 1 or 2 streets. It's it's quite a few streets. It's not just 1 or 2 schools, it's several schools. And so if you're a dc, excuse me, a parent, you've already begun to receive information that when school starts, this is going to be one of the things that you have the opportunity to plan for and around, especially if if you're in close proximity to this work. So there's a great deal of coordination that's happening. We are meeting as a large group monthly, but there are also meetings that are happening intermittently in between those meetings to ensure that that coordination effort is moving forward in a way that is going to be beneficial and create as little impact as possible. The numbers, while challenging in many ways to to review, don't leave us like this. You know, there is some hope it will require a great deal of partnership, though, not just between our organizations, but the whole of community is going to have to consider how it might be able to make some adjustments to ensure that people are able to move around safely.

I appreciate that, and then I'm sure these conversations are underway, but this seems like an opportunity to work with public safety service area to contemplate maybe some targeted.

We actually.

Traffic safety missions.

We actually are doing that. We have a meeting scheduled for Monday with internal support teams to begin to discuss all of the challenges that we anticipate that we'll need to address.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Councilor Kanal thank you, chair Clark, I appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, for being here. I'm I've got a ton of questions, so I will do maybe half of mine. And then I'll circle back into the into the. Q this is the first time I'm getting details on this. I'll just say I'm not sure how much of this is an ODOT responsibility, but I represent this area. This is my district, and I've gotten no offers of briefings or specific information. I am really grateful for the number of people that and organizations that are on slide 27, as people who were talked to, but not to folks. And this is why it's so important that we have a d two councilor on this committee for the first time. I've actually been offered more briefings by community than by official staff from any agency on this project, including a couple organizations who are probably watching online or even in this room. So I will be following up and asking for a one on one briefing. And I'll just say, because the fact that there's so much interest in this publicly, we are getting a ton of outreach from our constituencies. And I just we're not resourced. And I don't mean money or staff, I mean information to provide out with it. So at some point I'll probably be following up, but I would love to ask if, if one, if a representative from from both ODOT and PBOT would be willing to join me at a town hall to help explain to my constituents what's going to happen to them.

Councilor Kanal would be happy to participate in a town hall. Get the word out.

Yes, councilor We'd be.

I appreciate that, and I'll be valuing the information as a counselor, but also as someone who takes this route fairly frequently, including this morning. So strongly support the lid project, I want to be very helpful in any way I can on that. I also know that there's a lot of critical work in what's already happening the stormwater facilities, the pedestrian and bicycle improvements to come, avoiding the completely unnecessary bottleneck where it goes from 3 to 2 to back to three in like a half second. It has been a problem for years in that area. So I do appreciate that I am concerned about several different things safety impacts, maintenance impacts, business impacts. So from a safety perspective, councilor Green covered a lot of it in terms of major disruption to local residents. And I'm not sure if ODOT knows this, but I know PBOT does. We had a 55% reduction in traffic deaths in the other three districts of the city. Last year we had about. We had one fewer in my district had we had the same impact in reducing traffic deaths in d2 that we did in the other three. I'd have ten more neighbors and ten more constituents from just last year. And so, because we're the worst on traffic deaths in the city, I am concerned about this. And the data we have from PBOT is that most of that actually has to do with proximity to, and the access points around the freeways. So 84 as well, but particularly I-5 near where our high crash corridors are, interstate killingsworth, all that. So because these are my neighbors, this is my district, and I'm worried about lives that will be lost and the confusion around it. I want to make sure that there's as much assistance, signage, disruption, minimizing activity that we can do. And I'm concerned about. So I'll start with greeley in a minute here. But greeley is the best way to get around the closure, right. So having that be closed to is concerning. Right. That's the that'll be more for the later one, because it kind of joins right up where you're talking about for the five week closure. But is the anticipation that we're going to be putting people onto interstate entirely at that point as you come southbound on greeley?

Yes. Councilor. Okay. The the on ramp to greeley is closed so that so folks wouldn't be able to get onto I-5 south at that point.

The on ramp from greeley to, to I-5 south, there's a an on ramp that joins up and makes it a two Lane road for a while. That's primarily used coming off of like swan island. It's got all the fedex ups trucks is most of the people who join up there, but it ends up becoming a two Lane road for a period of time. And so I'm concerned about that specific spot as a place where exactly what councilor Greene was talking about people trying to get around the traffic will think there is an opportunity to do so is right by hazelnut grove. This is so there's also concerns about folks who are pedestrians in that area too. So I just wanted to flag that on the maintenance side, how this will not the plan that you are making based off of the savings of 6 to 9 million in one scenario and 7 million in the other. That's the cost of the project itself. I'm concerned that it will create greater cost for PBOT in terms of maintenance of surrounding city streets, that will have more traffic diverted onto them. In the case of a five week continuous closure than in the case of intermittent weekend closures. And I'm not sure if there's any plan to compensate for that. Increased wear and tear on roads in the city streets, specifically, broadway is an example of a street that has needed some work for a while. There's potholes all over the place, so my I have a two part question. The ODOT side of it is, what is the mitigation for that in this plan? And have you costed that out relative to in terms of the weekend versus continuous closure? And for PBOT, how are we going to be stepping up the work that PBOT does in this area to, to make up for that increased wear and tear?

Can I just say councilor Kanal. I love these questions. It's about time we get some compensation, right?

Yeah, I'm building to that.

Well, so from an impact standpoint, I don't believe that we evaluated the wear and tear on city streets with the increased traffic flow. I'll be honest there there is no plan today to compensate the city for for the increased traffic, the focus of ODOT and the city is about safety. We know where the hot spots are for pedestrians and cyclists and schools. And so we have our own modeling. We have the city's modeling. We're connecting, identifying where the potential hotspots are and then assessing what safety improvements can we make. Safety is first and foremost what our focus is on during this closure. Traffic management is the second piece. And so we expect that as drivers experience delays in the first week, we expect they'll be changes in behavior. I can say that 6% of the traffic that is coming from Washington can use I 205 because they're going through Portland, but the hours of congestion are going to be extended about three hours longer in the pm peak. People might leave earlier, but really it's the afternoon pm peak where we expect the traffic to be longer. So I think it's something we'll have to take a look at to see where are based on the data, where we've seen increases in traffic volume and where the impacts there may be wear and tear, but for five weeks versus, you know, a year, the impacts may be different. So, so I.

I appreciate that. I just want to point out, so lombard, when the road dieting happened west of of I-5 on lombard, there was little to no mitigation done for the fact that a lot of that traffic got pushed to columbia, which is fine, but also to Willamette. And ironically, the the the Willamette boulevard as well as the little streets. Right. So chautauqua is wide enough for people to get down there. But fos isn't. So right next to around columbia park, there's all this traffic that was redirected by a. This is a permanent shift, obviously not a not a temporary closure, but. That's a heavier. There's a lot heavier traffic for pedestrians and bicyclists and scooters and things like that on Willamette than on columbia. And because it's two different agencies, two different jurisdictions, I, I'm trying to ask now to ensure that we don't have what happened there, which is this completely separated out situation where, you know, people are trying to get to work fast, they're turning on to fos, and there's a kid right there. And I've personally watched it happen where it's like slamming on the brakes and not just once, right on the corner of either fos and lombard or fos and Willamette. So I'm curious about that because I'm trying to say we need to we need to get this figured out before it starts. I understand like safety on ODOT streets is great and important, and I'm glad that's your first priority. I want to make sure that we're not just moving the safety risk to, to roads that aren't built for it right now.

Right? So in terms of mitigation and addressing safety, it's not just ODOT system. We recognize that there's going to be diversion. So we are collaborating with PBOT to identify what are safety measures or evaluating each aye, Morillo corridor that has high use of pedestrians and cyclists to say this is a hotspot, is there more we can do in terms of signage? Are there opportunities for us to put in speed feedback trailers to let drivers know what their speed is? And we're going through that process right now to see what other improvements, because this is a temporary condition, very different equation. If it's a permanent condition where we know that there's going to be increased traffic flow. I don't know the specifics to lombard, whether that was a jurisdictional transfer or not as it relates to the road diet. Okay. Still yours.

Okay. But happy to answer the question regarding what we might be able to do, especially in the short term, to address some of the road condition concerns that may either currently exist or that may become more prominent when this happens. Typically, what happens when we know an event is coming to town, PBOT goes out, assesses a route, parade, run, marathon, bike ride, and we do go and do pretreatment. We fill potholes, we refresh striping. We do all of those things to make sure that people have as safe and comfortable a ride as possible, no matter the mode. So if it means that we're filling a pothole, then so be it. If it means we're doing thermoplastic crossing, then so be it. That's what we will do in advance of a major event coming with this, we recognize a major event is coming. And to david's point, that coordination really is important for us to know where the spillover will potentially go so that we can make sure that we're addressing it appropriately. One of the things that we talked about even in yesterday's meeting, as we talked about this, was there are a number of city agencies that have equipment that will be going on to routes that they otherwise would not be using to get to the work that they're going to do. So we're talking about how we can make those adjustments, even to either either the pattern of work, the schedule of work, whether we put something else later or earlier to ensure that we don't find ourselves on top of each other, trying to solve problems for folks who are traveling in the in the right of way. But, but those are things that we're we're going to be able to do. The maintenance operations team recognizes that there's going to be a need for us to shift the way that we operate a little bit, to be able to accommodate the needs that we'll be seeing. So some of those response times, some of the things that we get calls about all the time, we'll be able to prioritize addressing those. Will we be able to take care of everything in advance of this closure? I cannot guarantee you that. But I can guarantee that we will try really hard to make sure that we do. The coordination is of critical importance. I have underscored that many, many times in communication with ODOT, both in writing and in communication, in conversations, that this is not a place where we have an option of failure to show up well for not just the city, but for the region. And so we're going to be working on that.

I appreciate that, and I have one more question. But just to follow up on this, I think ensuring that we are. You recently sent us some information on how PBOT prioritizes projects and having this be a core part of the criteria to ensure that these particular roads that the the will be the alternate routes is really important. And since I gave one example on greeley that I think is closer to where odot's jurisdiction is, I'll give one for you as well, which is further up, because I still think there'll be additional traffic, even given the interstate route that you can take from greeley, where the the little zigzag is up just north of adidas headquarters. There are crosswalks there that have limited visibility and people come with bikes. People come jogging. Usually if someone's walking, you can see it. I personally have been rear ended. They're stopping for somebody who came out of nowhere a few months ago. And so I would love to see that improved in general, but I think it's particularly timely for that. My my last question and then I'll pass it off. There was a there's a slide, I think it's 23 where it says, and it's been referenced here, that a lot of this is about communication and encourage drivers to plan ahead and change travel, which I assume means mode of travel if they're able. Trimet is being cut right now. And so I I'm not sure how we can expect without additional frequency of the yellow line. And several of the busses for folks who are taking or who could be taking transit to do so effectively, is there any sort of bridge funding going on to help boost up the frequency during this, you know, five weeks, which is also, you know, you mentioned the beginning of the school year for pbs to ensure that TriMet is whole and that people can get around because it's it doesn't work to say take instead of taking a 20 minute drive, take an hour long transit trip that you got that that doesn't need to be an hour long, but you're waiting for most of that time, right? So is there any plan to mitigate the effects on not to mention that some folks might want to seat on these if they're full, are there are there any plans to mitigate in terms of frequency for TriMet?

Go ahead.

Thank you, councilor. So we we have been coordinating with TriMet. And unfortunately, as you mentioned, their their cuts, we we don't have funding allocated right now for additional service, but we are in conversations with them on how we can, you know, best approach this and what their ridership looks like, especially during events at moda center. You know, it already is very full during those events. And if we're encouraging folks to take transit during those events and it's already full, then that could be an issue. So there's, there's a lot of work over the next couple of months still with TriMet, but right now we do not have dedicated funding.

Yeah, I think that's something really important to mitigate for throughout this process. By the way, the week without driving is the fourth week of the five weeks that you've proposed here. So I imagine they'll already be people pushing for a greater level of transit ridership. I'll pass it off here. I have more later.

Thank you so much. Councilor. Kanal. And you asked some of my very own questions, so I appreciate that. We'll turn to councilor Smith now.

Loretta Smith: Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you all for for coming and giving your presentation. As a former cobid minority contractor, I just got one of the emails from ODOT at 118 and I still get the I still get the notices that on Tuesday, June 16th, the historic albina advisory board and community oversight advisory committee, they'll be holding a meeting next week from 5 to 6, and the meeting will also be live streamed. So I urge my my members and I know that councilor Kanal, he was concerned about not getting briefed on stuff. And so I would also look at that too, because sometimes different people have different information. So that would be an opportunity for you to, to look at this. And as I was thinking about this. I want to be real specific. I wanted to know if, if there are any explicit air quality safeguards that will be implemented for harriet tubman middle school during construction, because, as you know, widening the freeway, it brings active, active lanes closer to a historically impacted school that has that have had lots of issues. And so I wanted to find out if there are any zero emission or air filtration guarantees that are built into your contracts that would that would deal specifically with harriet tubman middle school.

Yes. Thank you, councilor. So the work that we are doing right now is, is north and then south of harriet tubman middle school. But we do have a significant amount of work in future phases right next to harriet tubman middle school. Okay. And that work in our initial planning stages, we've looked at their filtration system and then the emissions of, you know, equipment working right next to them. We've we've met several times. This was probably 2 to 3 years ago in the early planning stages with Portland public schools staff looking at their filtration system and how often we would need to replace those filters with the additional emissions that would come with equipment near the school, but also looking at low emission equipment and working only during the summer months. So we would not be working during the school year. But understanding that there are still summer programs that do happen at the school as well.

Great. And I'm really concerned about jobs, and I'm concerned about the ability to have apprenticeships and those kinds of things. And so I wanted to find out if there was a percentage. I know you've already done the contract, but if there was a percentage of guarantees for minority owned businesses and enterprises on this particular project, and if so, what were they?

Great question. There is a percent. There is goals for both. Unfortunately, the dbe rules rescinded. But we have we have small business goals that we are still working towards as well as workforce. I do not know those off the top of my head, but I will get them back to our. Our team has well exceeded those goals. We will be reporting out. So the the community oversight advisory committee that you mentioned is our oversight committee over our workforce and small business development, and we report to them regularly on our on our current status. So I will if if you don't mind, I will follow up.

That would be great because like me and many others, I was a former db contractor and I was stripped of my db status when this new administration came in. And I know there are others who had similar experiences with ODOT, and I'm wondering how many of those folks. Were able to get recertified under this new system. I didn't get recertified because I'm here on council, but I'm just curious of the drop off of minority businesses because we were already underserved to begin with. And how many of those folks just never, you know, it's just like in COVID, they just never tried again. Some of the kids who during COVID, they never came back to school. We lost a whole generation of children. And I think that there are so many challenges and barriers for minority businesses. That was a big one. And, and I know that losing that $450 million, because this project is what, close to, what, 67 million? That was the project that we designed that could meet the moment for the money that we had right now. And that's why we're doing this, this smaller version of the rose quarter project. So I'm just curious if there's some things that we can do. Director williams, in terms of ODOT and other places, since we're we're going to be working on renewing the coab, and I want to make sure that, you know, even in the restricted funds, if there's opportunities for us to take some of those dollars and put it into places and spaces that would allow us to increase and to at least level, set some of the apprenticeship opportunities so that some of these folks can be small businesses. And, you know, there are a lot of big projects, ivr and others that are in the, in the, the hopper, but they're not recognizing dbs as a, a critical piece to, to the future of the project like it was before. And so if there's anything that we do in terms of adding our technical assistance or receiving or putting out dollars, I before I would put out some dollars, I would have some requirements to getting city money that this is this needs to be set up so that we can. One get folks cobid certified or have some way to certify folks and help those folks who have not gotten recertified under the new system be certified and increase the number of apprenticeships that we have, because it's ridiculous. I mean, we have a lot of money traveling through our, our, our bank accounts. And, you know, this $2 billion that that we just put out for our water for our new water filtration center, I'm thinking we, we have an opportunity to leverage our position to be able to, through the water department and the transportation department, to make sure that we are improving the situation for minority businesses in the city. And if we don't use the kind of muscle that we have by putting all of these projects in partnership with ODOT and the federal government into play, then what are we doing? Why? If we're not going to leverage our position because we're we're positioned to do all of this stuff. It just depends on what we make a priority. So I just wanted to put it on record that that should be something that our city administrator and the mayor. And when you're having these leadership conversations, that this is something that's important to me. And I'll always ask you the same question. I'm very consistent. I ask the same question all the time because I want to know what's happening to our babies and what's happening to our minority communities. So that is something that I would like to follow back up with you.

Thank you, councilor. We will. Thank you, councilor. We'll make sure that we continue to do the work that we've done with ODOT. There is, again, a pretty it's a significant partnership. It's a tremendous partnership, actually, and there are opportunities for us to, as I've challenged the team, do the right things, regardless of what you call it. If you're doing the right things for every community, then everyone will benefit in the ways that we intend. So we do pay very close attention to that. We are working to make sure that people are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that are going to be available.

And I agree with you. You have to tell people to do the right things. But see, I know better, right? Because we wouldn't need the voting rights. Act or the civil rights act if people would do the right thing. They don't do the right thing. You have to back that up with policies and languages. That's right. And you have to have people like me who are going to enforce it if we got it on the books. So for me, yeah, we got to keep saying it. And sometimes I just continue to say the same thing and hopefully somebody will pick up that I'm not going to, I'm not going to stop saying it.

And we look forward to continuing to engage, to ensure that we're not just reflecting that we hear you, but that we take seriously the things that you're challenging.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Thank you, councilor Smith. We depend on your consistency. Really appreciate that. I'm going to take the liberty of asking a couple questions, and I'll turn it back over to councilor Kanal. I'm going to just probe on that July date, that 14 hour closure. Can you give us a better idea of when that might happen?

Yeah. So it is currently scheduled for July 11th.

Oh, okay. July 11th, not July 4th. That's good. Okay. Thank you. And some of my other my questions were answered earlier. I was going to ask you where the freight community. What, what, what are they thinking? What are they planning for?

Yeah. Thank you chair. We have done a lot of coordination with the freight community. So through the design process, we go to what is called the mobility advisory committee. That is a spot for coordination and official approval for the closure through the freight community. And so that happened over the last couple years. We actually just this week are going back to the freight community for an update at that mobility advisory committee. We've also both at the technical

Level. And then at the communications level, we've gone to several meetings with the freight community, specifically around the operations that they have in the area, and there's ongoing conversations.

Just north of where this.

Just north of the area and then using I-5.

I mean, I know they already have issues with congestion, so this is just going to be a multiplier. I'm going to diverge just for a second and stick my neck out and try to move myself from catastrophizing here to trying to find some silver linings to see if there are some silver linings here. And I'm just wondering about kind of nontraditional marketing around this and see if we can find some opportunities here. I know that sounds a little wacky, but you know, people are going to be stuck and looking for alternatives. And I'm just wondering if there's some sort of downtown hotel marketing opportunity here or just where, where can we, where can we find some opportunities here to what is what is that old saying? Make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? You know what I'm saying? And or I'm even thinking that, you know, we all could dress up in animal suits, you know, and go to some of these hot spots and wave signs. And, you know, we've done that at some of the schools around, you know, and just try to attract more attention of the drivers and get them to slow down. Just some wacky ideas. But I'm just thinking that there might be some, some, some opportunities here to do something creative. Yes. Oh.

Councilor Clark, I did want to mention one of the things that we're going to be discussing in our meeting on Monday is how we as a city, might be able to encourage different behaviors, travel, time shifting, encouraging people to visit a local restaurant, do a staycation, of course, we'll continue to engage with businesses about shifting start or end times in terms of their employees. But one of the things that when I did emergency management work a million years ago, right when we would have a snowstorm, invariably come at rush hour, the message was stay downtown and go to that local restaurant. And it ended up providing first responders the opportunity and the transportation department, the opportunity to clear the roads so that you didn't have people sitting on x, y, z highway or x, y, z road for hours, running out of gas, losing their patients and other things while they're waiting to get home. Of course, now that there are shifts in the ways that people do their work, there are fewer people that are in one place at one time. And looking out the window, waiting for the first snow drop to fall. We know this is happening so we can plan for that, and we can work with the hospitality community, the restaurant association, the business associations, the bids or the business districts to see if there might be ways that they could look at doing some promotions that help to alleviate the stress, that the traveling public would feel that the roadways would feel by having a mass exodus or mass entrance into the city, either in either direction at any point during the day. So that's something that we're going to be discussing.

Great. I'm so glad to hear you say that, director williams. Maybe we could even figure out a contest, some way to get people interested in staying downtown, spending the night or dinner or whatever it is.

Well, we do have the staycation weekend that is coming up in September. It will be paired with the Sunday parkways. That's in September, the downtown Sunday parkways. What better time? Better time.

Good timing, excellent timing. Thank you so much, councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. I guess I'll start there. I like the idea of promotions. I want to make sure it's not just downtown though, because the small businesses in this area are going to be affected very heavily. I have a few questions about that. We know that some of the interstate travel is going to be diverting to 205, and some of the businesses, you know, I'm thinking about up in jensen beach, hayden island, delta park area, it's that that sort of area, right, are going to be affected by the lack of traffic or less traffic that are coming through from those you said 6%, but I imagine there's more that's within the the, the sort of catchment area we're talking about between the 205 area. So I wanted to talk about how we're supporting those businesses. I don't think there's anyone from prosper here today, but I wanted to follow up and maybe ask if you're aware of anything from the prosper side in terms of providing support to small businesses, but specifically historically disadvantaged businesses in the area?

I don't know, I don't think I know we can talk, we can talk about it. I was looking at caitlin to see if there had been some conversations with prosper. Not yet, but thank you for placing it in our consciousness. We will make sure that as a part of this conversation, we're looking not just like you said at the downtown, but the full catchment area, the full project impact area, so that we can make sure that there are strategies in place to support businesses large and small, mom and pops all the way up to your fred meyers to make sure that folks are able to do everything that they need to do. And when I talk about a fred meyer, I'm also talking about it from us going there to get our groceries, but also fred meyer being able to deliver groceries. So all of those things are really, really important. And continuity is something that we can't risk not having in the city. So I'll make sure that we talk about that with with prosper.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. I think I'm really glad you brought up their ability to get information or goods to the place. And obviously this is not PBOT responsibility to solve, but I'm just going to put this into the record for said and prosper, which is, you know, when I started working at the city in 2021, I used to have to go to different fred meyers, actually, because the lombard interstate one wasn't able to get as much restocked, and that was not because of necessarily exclusively things related to road work, but it was a question of like, you could always go to a different part of the city and find what you were looking for. But you could 70% of the time find what you're looking for. Lombard, interstate and st. Johns got it even worse at some time. So I think this this is an important thing to, to keep in mind. I asked about the transit side from the perspective of boosting it. Do we know if busses are going to be rerouted and if so, which ones and how?

Councilor there will not be any bus rerouting.

Great. Good to hear. I know I'm jumping around a little bit. This is not. It was written kind of in the slide order. Neba. The northeast broadway business association is a, I think a good group to reach out to for what we were just talking about, but also the your slide 27 had all the folks that you have talked to in slide 28 had folks that are going to be talked to. I would love to see some of the local business districts added to the list. So naba, seoul district, mississippi overlook village, and in particular, lloyd, I think is kind of the most adjacent to the area we're talking about here as, as groups to reach out to. I'm happy to help connect as well.

Yeah. And councilor, this is a, I would say, a summarized list. We have a much more extensive list that breaks down some of these kind of categories into, into further business associations. And those that you mentioned are on that list.

Okay.

I would love to advocate here and maybe another place as well for the work. You know, is the work also going to be done at night? And as a lot of what we're talking about here because of a five week closure, I imagine there's already a plan for some of it. But I think there is a conversation about prioritizing intermittent, sometimes day, sometimes night a mix. And I think putting more of it on the night side makes sense in this area just because we're not. When you get up to the further north areas, then you've got residential, but there's a lot less here. And so I'm trying to avoid affecting folks because I appreciate I had in my notes to talk about harriet tubman and air quality, but there's also noise pollution. And I want to talk about that as well. So, you know, folks going to events in that area and having the impact.

So yes, so councilor for, for the i5 closure, both the, the 14 hour closure and the five week closure work will be going 24 over seven. We will have crews out there every hour of the day doing the work to get it done as quickly as possible. For other work that we've been doing, we have had several intermittent nightly closures. We were we've shifted traffic a couple different times doing work in the median and now over on the bridge barrier, and a lot of that is happening at night. Yeah.

I have yeah, I've seen with my own eyes. You. Councilor Green asked a question about the lid and the sort of timing there. There was a lot in that response, but what I, what I took away is that right now we have funding for the expansion of the freeway for the but not for the lid. Is that is that accurate? I, I that was my interpretation of what I was hearing.

Yes. Plus. So councilor We have funding for phase one a and one b, so that is work primarily. There's the stormwater work at the north end, but primarily that's the bridge work at the south end of the project. So it does get a portion of the freeway expansion and and auxiliary lanes. It really only gets us that one auxiliary Lane from I-84 down to the morrison bridge exit. It doesn't get any of the northbound auxiliary lanes or the auxiliary lanes for the rest of the southbound from I-84 down to, to or from, sorry, I 4 or 5 down to moda center. So it gets a small portion of the auxiliary Lane in the freeway work. And then as we move forward and continue to build, you know, get funding, I'm hopeful that we get funding for the remainder of the project. And it, once we hit the highway cover the the highway work and the highway cover work go in tandem. So we, we will build a portion of the auxiliary lanes underneath the portion of the highway cover that we are working and will continue to do that work as we move north.

Okay, that that makes sense. And I, another thing to just kind of put in the record, because I believe what you're saying here is for maybe the legislature and ODOT leadership more than the region, folks, if we expand the freeway and we don't end up building the lid, there's going to be people with pitchforks, and I might well be one of them as well. So I wanted to get that out there because that that's the primary concern. I think there's a lot of folks who are very against expanding the freeway, but understand that it may be necessary in order to get it done. And so the linkage of that is really vital.

I'm just going to remind you, we only have about maximum ten minutes. And I know councilor Green has some more questions too.

Sorry, I got two more ones very quick. In response to earlier councilor Green question, director williams, you said you had a map of what the diversions would be. Can you share that? Because I think that's something that all of us should have. But obviously d2.

We'd be happy to share that.

Yeah. And then. Has there been any conversation about the mayor relaxing his guidance on return to office during this period of time for north portlanders?

It's my understanding that the city administrator, mayor and deputy city administrator warren are talking about what options might be available for us to consider during this time.

That sounds great, and I really appreciate it. And I'll follow up with you about the other thing, which is mlk specific street closure stuff when we get there.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Kanal. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: I just got back in the queue because, councilor Clark, you raised something I thought was interesting is in our district on vermont, we oftentimes have this little event where we councilors will stand out there. You and me and Eric have been there before.

I was thinking.

Yeah, we could do those sorts of things and scale this to the other districts. And maybe, I guess you'd have to properly publicly notice this. We wouldn't talk about any policy, but we can imagine having the committee out at one of these things, waiving sort of slowdown signs. I think that could.

Be happy to give you a permit to do that.

We want to stay above.

That was in jest, but yes, thanks.

I don't want to get on the wrong side of history here.

No.

Great. Well, I think that's really a part of keeping Portland innovative and interesting. I mean, you know, we were in the new york times with our frog suit, so why can't we do something equally interesting on a major shutdown project like this? There's nothing says that we can't do it. It's just our own creativity. So I don't think there are any more questions. I just really want to thank you. This has been an excellent presentation. Thank you for taking all our questions. I know we probably have more as we go along, and we may want to do a check in. And I realize that July is kind of an experiment, you know, a one day trial before we get to September. So we'll see how that goes. But thank you all very much. It was very impressive. I really appreciate it. And with that, colleagues, our next meeting is Tuesday, June the 23rd. We're finally going to get an update on asset management and where that plan is. And we may have other things coming, some potential items from our colleagues and from executive items from PBOT potentially. So. And that will be hopefully a three hour meeting. So this is an abbreviated meeting, but thank you all so much. And I will adjourn the meeting of the public works committee.