Public Health in Oregon - Join The Conversation

I believe that expanding I-5 would be a horrible idea. I agree with angela. If I-5 crossing the columbia river would expand, it may be faster driving and less traffic to begin with but as people come to the idea of a faster commute I-5 will eventually have the same amount of traffic. Concentrating ideas, and spending funds on light rails and other means of transportation that are eco friendly would be a better use of time and money in the long run.

I’m very glad to see this local and massive transportation project in this forum.  We live just blocks from I-5 in the Piedmont neighborhood.  We are in an area that is already exposed to high levels of toxic release, along Columbia Blvd and the industrial areas surrounding the Columbia Slough. 

While we love living here, purely expanding I-5 in order to accomodate primarily Washington communters without clear guarantees around public transit options, tolls, and a plan to mitigate overall emissions will be a detriment to our neighborhood.

This is an area that was once teeming with families, and throughout the 1990’s and this decade, many of the homes are now occupied by elderly folks.  But things are changing rapidly.  Gentrification has moved many young folks up to this part of town, we bought our home in 2000 before prices went up significantly in this area but had already jumped in the Eliot neighborhood.  It is diverse, there are more children here.  On my block alone, 5 houses have sold, 4 infills have been built, and 3 families now live here with small children.

Air Quality is complex business, but what I do know is that the airshed and cumulative calculations are done over broad areas, thus even though we may be exposed to high concentrations here, it is considered adequate overall when looking at the whole of Portland.  This dangerous, particularly to our health.  There is also the cumulative effect of having lived in an area where poor air quality, asthma, brownfields and other environmental problems have been disproportionate over a long period of time.  Even though there have been major improvements such as the elimination of leaded gas, brownfield redevelopment, Interstate MAX, the balance sheet I believe still shows that we are still living in an environmental health danger zone.

High traffic is one way to guarantee that people will drive less.  If we focused more on light rail and less on additional lanes, people would be more likely to take rail instead of driving and contributing to air pollution and the depletion of oil.

Creating additional lanes will make this drive between Vancouver and Portland less congested, which will increase driving.  I say stick to two lanes each way!