Black
History
Month
PO QR code
Volume XLVV • Number 4
‘City
of
Roses’
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • February 24, 2021
Committed to Cultural Diversity
I-5 Scar of
Displacement
Revisited
ODOT takes
another look at Rose
Quarter project
b everly C orbell
t he P ortland o bserver
In June of last year, the nonprofit Albina Vision Trust
sent an email to the Oregon Department of Transportation
withdrawing support for its proposed I-5 Rose Quarter Im-
provement Project, which would reconfigure a 1.8-mile
stretch of I-5 between the Interstate 84 and Interstate 405
interchanges.
According to Winta Yohannes, Albina Vision’s manag-
ing director, the proposal didn’t go far enough to mitigate
the harm done to the Black community in the Albina neigh-
borhood when hundreds, maybe thousands, of homes and
businesses were bulldozed and the land was sold to make
way for I-5, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Veterans Me-
morial Coliseum and other urban renewal projects.
“Despite our good faith efforts, we do not see our en-
gagement resulting in meaningful changes to the project of
its anticipated outcomes,” Yohannes wrote.
At particular issue was the potential, encouraged by
Albina Vision, for buildable caps, or covers, to be placed
over certain portions of I-5 that would allow construction
of apartments and businesses. At the time ODOT was pro-
jecting a cost of $795 million, but said the cost would be
significantly higher if the covers allowed buildable con-
struction.
Pushback was swift, not only from Albina Vision Trust,
by
A swath Portland centered at Broadway and Weidler is cleared for construction of the I-5 freeway in this 1962
photo from the Eliot Neighborhood Association. Even many of the homes still standing were later lost to
demolition as the historic African American neighborhood was decimated over the 1960s and early 1970s, not
only for I-5, but to make room for the Memorial Coliseum, its parking lots, the Portland Public School’s Blanchard
Building, I-405 ramps, and Emanuel Hospital’s expansion.
the grassroots effort that began in 2017 to remake the Rose
Quarter district into a fully functioning neighborhood, em-
bracing its diverse past and re-creating a landscape that can
accommodate much more than its two sports and entertain-
ment venues, but with several officials, including Mayor
Ted Wheeler, also dropping support for the project.
The state transportation agency, however, listened, said
ODOT project manager Megan Channell, and now is doing
things very differently.
“This was a direct response to the community input we
C ontinued on P age 6
When ODOT offered the possibility of open outdoor
plazas as caps over I-5 at the Rose Quarter in a
new plan to increase the lanes of travel on the
freeway, the proposal drew wide opposition for not
addressing the economic development needs of the
historic African American community which was first
displaced by the freeway nearly 50 years ago.
Decorated Trimet Bus Honors Black History
TriMet honors Black History Month with a newly painted
bus featuring local and national leaders who have helped
lead the march toward racial justice. The individuals
include Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the late
Portland pastor Rev. T. Allen Bethel, Oregon’s first Black
woman legislator, Margaret Carter, and Portland’s first
Black woman City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. The bus
will be rolling throughout the Portland metro area for the
next nine months.