The Oregon Department of Transportation doubly violated federal law by not only refusing to study cost-effective alternatives as part of its plan to double the width of Interstate 5, but also not being transparent with the public about the impacts of the plan, according to court papers filed in a new suit against the project.
It’s the second lawsuit seeking to halt the so-called Rose Quarter Improvement Project, which the state says will “improve safety and congestion,” but amounts to an expansion of a freeway that runs through a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Advocates want the agency to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that more deeply analyzes the climate and air pollution impacts of the proposed freeway widening than the less-rigorous environmental assessment that the FHWA approved in March.
The goal of the suit is to force the state to assess “the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of proposed actions” and to get ODOT to consider traffic-reduction methods such as congestion pricing, transit alternatives, or narrowing the right-of-way which were left out of the approved environmental assessment.
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“This lawsuit is our community’s opportunity to prevent ODOT from shoving all the air pollution and traffic that an expanded freeway brings through the recovering Albina neighborhood,” Chris Smith, co-founder of No More Freeways, said in a statement.
Albina, one of Portland’s oldest Black neighborhoods, is still reeling from the urban renewal that came with the construction of Interstate 5 in the 1950s and ’60s. Hundreds of Black families, businesses, and churches were displaced to make way for the highway, according to the Rose Quarter project page. The current improvement project is supposed to help rectify some of the damage by capping highways and reconnecting this neighborhood with the rest of the city.
But advocates say capping highways while also widening them only puts residents at more risk of the impacts of climate change, as widening highways can lead to worsening air quality.
“Every dollar we put into freeway widening is a wasted dollar that could go into reducing carbon or providing sustainable mobility some other way,” said Smith.
The $1.9-billion Rose Quarter project is just part of a larger grouping of highway plans that include I-205 Abernethy Bridge Project, the OR 217 Auxiliary Lanes and Hall Blvd Bike/Ped Crossing Project, the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, and the I-5 Boone Bridge Replacement Project, according to the project page.
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Recently, the federal DOT, through its Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods program, awarded the Rose Quarter Project $450 million to build highway caps and create safer streets over the existing highway facility in Albina. Advocates say adding things like auxiliary lanes goes against DOT’s instructions for how Reconnecting Communities funds should be used.
“Projects receiving Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant funding cannot be used for additional through travel lanes for single-occupant passenger vehicles or highway expansion,” according to the award letter. As reported by Streetsblog, Auxiliary lanes can be a shorthand for widening lanes, ultimately adding more vehicles on the road.
No More Freeways and other organizations are happy with RCN funds going towards the highway caps, but ODOT also asked for an additional $750 million in infrastructure grant which Smith said would be used for both the caps and highway widening efforts. To make matters worse, U.S. DOT has already earmarked that grant application as “highly recommended.”
“You should not be extending the halo of ‘highly recommended’ for reconnecting communities and neighborhood [funds] to the widening portions of this project, because widening it is exactly the opposite of what reconnected communities is about,” Smith said.
This is the second lawsuit advocates have filed this year against the interstate project. In May, community advocates sued alleging that no congestion pricing or transportation demand management plan was included in the approved improvements project, nor were either “analyses” included in the Environmental Assessment, that was approved by Federal Highway Administration in May.
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Lawsuits can take time to be settled. In the meantime, Smith hopes that advocates connect the dots around ill-fated highway redesigns that can add more cars on the road.
“I’d love to see [advocates] start to win some test cases and establish law so we don’t have to fight the same questions on every single freeway widening project,” Smith said, adding that to do that residents also need comes to terms with the fact that “we’re just not going to meet our climate goals without driving less.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — A man accused of killing several women and dumping their bodies in the Portland area was arraigned Wednesday on a fifth murder charge.
Jesse Calhoun’s defense attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in a Portland courtroom where victims’ family members were present. The hearing, during which Calhoun remained silent, came after he was indicted last week on the most recent second-degree murder charge over the death of Ashley Real, 22, in 2023.
Calhoun has now been charged with five counts of second-degree murder for five victims, along with four counts of abuse of a corpse. The victims’ bodies were found over multiple months in early 2023, sparking concern at the time that a serial killer might be targeting young women in the region.
Calhoun was previously indicted in the deaths of Kristin Smith, 22; Charity Perry, 24; Bridget Webster, 31; and Joanna Speaks, 32.
He remains in custody at the Multnomah County Detention Center. His defense attorneys declined to comment.
Real, Perry, Webster and Smith were found in northwestern Oregon, while Speaks was found near an abandoned barn in southwestern Washington. Their bodies were found in a roughly 100-mile radius, including in wooded areas and in a culvert.
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Jose Real, Ashley Real’s father, was in tears as he spoke with reporters after the hearing. He recalled memories of watching her grow up and playing with her brother.
“I never thought or imagined that my family would experience something like this,” he said through a Spanish interpreter. “She had a heart of gold.”
Masciell Real, Ashley’s sister, also spoke through tears.
“I think being in that courtroom today and being able to see him, and know that he is behind bars now, it takes the weight off my shoulders knowing that he isn’t around and free to cause any harm to any other women out there,” she said. “But it also doesn’t take away the fact that my sister isn’t here anymore.”
Relatives of other victims were also present.
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“We’ve all experienced the worst thing that could ever happen to you, and it’s incredibly hard to see one of the other families hurt the way we do,” said Melissa Smith, mother of Kristin Smith.
Jose Real previously told The Associated Press that he had called police in November 2022 after his daughter showed up crying at his Portland home, saying she had been choked by Calhoun. She had marks on her throat, he said, and he took her to a hospital.
Real said at the time that an initial police report was taken but that the case was then transferred to a different jurisdiction and it was difficult to reach those overseeing it. Details of the attack were first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
His daughter’s body was found in May 2023 by a man who was fishing in a pond southeast of Portland.
Calhoun was arrested in June 2023 on unrelated parole warrants and then indicted in 2024 and 2025 in the other four women’s deaths. The initial indictment came weeks before Calhoun was due to be released from state prison, where he was returned in 2023 to finish serving a four-year term for assaulting a police officer, trying to strangle a police dog, burglary and other charges.
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He was initially released in 2021, a year early, because he helped fight wildfires in 2020 under a prison firefighting program. Gov. Tina Kotek revoked the commutation in 2023 when police began investigating him in the deaths.
The University of Oregon’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to approve a $1.55 billion operating budget for the next fiscal year.
But they asked university leadership to return with an amended proposal by Dec. 15, when more details about future budget cuts will be known.
FILE — The Board of Trustees recently approved next year’s budget for the University of Oregon. The vote comes several weeks after the school’s president announced that he wants the university to reduce its annual budget as revenues and out-of-state enrollment decline.
Brian Bull / KLCC
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The vote comes several weeks after University of Oregon President Karl Scholz announced that he wants the school to reduce its annual budget by around $65 million.
At a trustees meeting Monday, Scholz said the estimated budget shortfall for next year is just around $23 million. But he said out-of-state enrollment is below historical norms for the second year in a row, and it’s unlikely to bounce back.
“One year can be an aberration. Two years is a pattern,” said Scholz. “And I believe we have to treat it as a new reality.”
Scholz said in May that discussions about the budget would happen over a six-month period. He said no final decisions about cuts would be made over this summer.
On Monday, UO Senate President Dyana Mason told trustees that the Senate had approved a new process to allow for community feedback in the cost-cutting process.
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Mason said the provost will work with the deans on budget proposals, finding “clear rationale” for why programs are considered for elimination.
The provost would then bring those proposals to the Senate Committee for Academic Modifications—which includes staff, faculty and students—for feedback.
Once the plans are nearly finalized, the Senate could then hold a period for public comment.
Mason told trustees that a six-month timeline is better than the three months that frustrated some staff last year, but she recommended taking however much time is necessary.
“The worst situation would be rushing forward to make decisions without appropriate evidence, data, feedback from the people that are most in the know about the impact on our students,” said Mason.
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UO’s Board of Trustees Chair Steve Holwerda said that every week that university delays the decisions could cost them millions of dollars.
Nathan Wilk is a reporter with the KLCC newsroom.This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
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Oregon’s juvenile justice system has been reshaped in recent years by a sweeping reform law that changed how the state handles minors accused of serious crimes.
Senate Bill 1008, which took effect in 2020, ended automatic transfers of juveniles into adult court and eliminated life without parole sentences for juveniles. The law also created “second-look” hearings and established parole eligibility after 15 years for certain offenders who committed crimes before turning 18.
To help explain the law and its impact, KVAL’s Frannie Pedersen put together a timeline video tracing the history of Senate Bill 1008, from the passage of Measure 11 in 1994 to the reforms that later reshaped Oregon’s juvenile justice system.
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The video breaks down how the law changed, why lawmakers pushed for reform, and how SB 1008 continues to influence Oregon’s justice system today. Viewers can watch the full video for a detailed timeline and explanation of the changes.
