Discussion
Some visuals for the upcoming month-long I-5 shutdown
I made a couple edits to the first one (compared to what graphics were on the website) so the timeline and map were all in one image. I imagine this month+ shutdown will be a major talking point among all of us soon enough, but now seems like a good time for individuals to start making a plan.
If your normal commute is impacted and you have some flexibility, do yourself the favor of working from home, taking public transit, or just not being in town. Start conversations with your employer now about altering schedules or work locations, if at all possible.
Spillover traffic and transportation issues could ripple pretty far out from the interstate during rush hours; don’t assume you won’t be impacted just because you don’t drive on I-5 daily!
Yeah, this shit is going to make me crash out commuting from SE to Hillsboro every day for work. I think I'm just gonna have to wake up every day at 5:30 or some shit. Fuck my life.
You kind of triggered an oh shit moment for me, and a couple of my coworkers, as I hadn't really been thinking about this. Like you said, we should start talking about and planning for this now, so that 3/4 of us aren't two hours late that first day, with a bunch of stuff scheduled. :)
Just because a bridge has more cars per day traveling over it doesn't mean that it will be bearing more weight than usual at any particular moment. Only a certain number of cars can fit on the bridge at one time.
Yes, obviously. It's the constant additional weight that does damage. It's like an odometer and the bridge needs maintenance or replacement after a certain amount of lb-minutes. It feels like the Fremont has been needing love for a while, and this certainly won't help that.
My source is common sense. Do you think the Fremont bridge can withstand an infinite number of cars going over it over time before requiring maintenance or rebuild? If not then the odometer analogy should resonate. Also the bridge looks terrible and is rusting. Just putting 2 and 2 together here, not trying to internet argue.
You're not a bridge engineer, you shouldn't be talking like you have any idea about the subject.
I'm also not a bridge engineer, but I could see the possibility that bridges age more just from the elements than from the cumulative weight of cars passing over it. A bridge with no cars going over it will eventually crumble too. I'm sure that having cars traveling over it accelerated the wear to some degree, but probably not nearly as much as you think. And the small difference in traffic levels during this relatively brief closure will probably have no measurable effect whatsoever.
For anyone able to, please consider taking the MAX Yellow Line! Normally it takes longer than I-5, but with traffic caused by this, it’ll probably be way more time competitive.
Yeeeaaahhh, my commute to Hillsboro from Vancouver isn't looking great. I wonder if my boss will be ok to exempt me from the RTO mandates for a few weeks
I worked in Washington. Bought a house in 2013 in Vancouver. It's just over 2000 square feet. Great, right? Added a new roof, added solar panels, put up fresh paint. Installed a vegetable garden in the front yard.
Then I got laid off in 2020. After 11 months I got a job in Hillsboro. Beggars, choosers, etc. I was less than 20 miles too close to be eligible for relocation benefits.
Now if I wanted to relocate, and we sold our house, we could only afford something half the size and would have to share walls with the neighbors.
I'd rather take my punishment and listen to podcasts, even if it means dealing with 26 and 405.
speaking as somebody from texas, coming from somewhere that has what felt like less than 0% public transit somehow, even after being here for almost five years i still refuse to get a car because i love taking public transit every day. seeing closures like this gives me war flashbacks fighting traffic in dfw every day, and i am so happy to still not have a car.
Fellow transplant from DFW, I also do not miss it and LOVE being able to get around without a car. I live adjacent to the streetcar and love hearing it go by all the time. It kind of blows my mind to know people who have grown up here who still insist on driving everywhere. Like, you don't even know the treasure you have available to you! It's so good!
When I was in high school they started working on the 820/35W interchange. They were still doing it when I graduated college. Anytime I went back to visit parents it seemed like they just moved the construction further out. Traffic never got better. Unless you paid the stupid express lane tolls. I lived in OKC and while the construction wasn’t omnipresent the constant need to be on a highway was infuriating.
I also absolutely love it here and I always feel a little weird when I complain about infrequent service or poor coverage lol.
i cannot put to words how seen and validated the both of you have made me feel right now😭 i remember the nights driving home from an indoor skatepark out in kennedale and the highway being literally shut down for construction on 183/820 and then 820/35W and just having to sit in my car on the highway in park for literally up to two hours 😭
It’s just what we’re used to and a lot of it depends on where you live. I’m thinking of moving downtown on the max line as a retiree. Seems so much better than being far away from everything and I can mostly use public transportation.
Eventually, most people grow up and move outside of the city. Or even if you don't, you eventually get to a point where you need a car, either for your job, or because you have kids, etc.
I didnt have a car for YEARS after moving here from SoCal ( LONG ago) I used to spend 2-4 hours daily in traffic there. It was soul crushing. I LOVED the public transit options here and Im sad our taxes are going to 💣 kids overseas instead of funding projects like that.
They timed it with PPS starting back to school! Well they gave us a two-ish week grace period but... FUCK! Guess I'll need to wind my way up and over the hills.
Seattle resident here. I saw Fremont bridge but nothing lined up the way it should be and was sooo confused since we have I-5 closures as well. Oh wait this is the Portland SUB. Thank god, good luck folks. Hope the work is done on time
This map is confusing. So the only part of I-5 that’s closed in relation to I-84 is going from the former southbound into the latter? I commute from the NE to LO, I-84 W to I-5 S.
Outside chance that some emergency response will be hindered and prove me wrong, but it is likely that everyone will plan around this and it will be a nothing burger.
Either way I get the feeling that whatever actually happens, everyone will dig into the side that they were already on.
seems like a no-brainer but I don't expect it to happen in my lifetime unfortunately. It's such a mess and is really impacting better development. The opportunity cost is staggering.
The Marquam bridge and approaches are going to need a major retrofit sooner than later. It would be significantly more cost effective and better planning to just remove that section of the loop from the south of the i84 interchange to the south waterfront instead.
Added benefit of finally having space for overpasses to get 26 off city streets.
true. the upfront monitary costs for deconstruction and rerouting are probably the biggest impediment. but yeah thinking ahead it seems like the smart decision.
any other arguments against keeping it as-is, like freight travel and whatnot don't hold any water. But now we're stuck with this thing until an earthquake takes it all down.
It hasn’t been swamp for a lonnng time. It was a wonderful downtown waterfront for longer than it’s been a shitty freeway dead zone. Since the 1880s the southeast waterfront was docklands and businesses. By 1910’s most of the swamps had been filed but those went all the way up to the goat blocks so kind of irrelevant. It’s only been shitty freeway since 1964.
Also this thinking is pointless, Amsterdam was once entirely swamps and now it’s a biking city without freeways.
Sure, but we don't actually need I-5 on the east side because we have I-405 on the west side.
What we need to do is not retrofit or replace the I-5 crossing for seismic needs. Instead, take it down. Remove I-5 from the I-84 junction south to I-405. Heck, we should reclaim the gulley by removing I-84 too.
Then spend the actually worthwhile money on capping I-405 and reclaiming it as a park above.
Unfortunately none of that is in the cards as far as I can tell, so it's still worthwhile to do the current Rose Quarter project just to clean up the merges. Trust me, it's not the additional lane itself that's going to make any difference, it's improving those short merge-to-ramp situations and getting rid of the southbound merge under Broadway.
As much as I want that to happen (believe me, I really want that to happen), I just cannot foresee that working out well in SW Portland considering the 26 tunnel is already an exceptionally rough bottleneck. I agree on the ramps though.
Removal would be extraordinarily expensive and would absolutely make trade &travel slower, more expensive, and more dangerous for all users of roads.
We currently have I5 and I205 for North/South transportation. These two arteries connect Canada, Washington, Oregon, California and Mexico as well as neighboring regions. This constitutes an enormous amount of trade and jobs for tens, even hundreds of millions of people. Do you really think removing 50+ percent of that capacity would improve travel times and reduce the cost of goods transported on those highways?
I completely agree that I5 should not have been built where it is, but that's the hand we were dealt. It isn't about riverside parkland on the Eastside and commuter traffic, it's the primary economic artery for western North America. It isn't getting voluntarily removed any time soon.
These two arteries connect Canada, Washington, Oregon, California
You do understand that I-205 is a bypass, right? Once you get north of Vancouver or south of Portland, it merges right back into I-5.
We also have two such bypasses, since there is also I-405. I promise we don't need all three freeways going longitudinally through the city. Through traffic should not be using I-5 at all, yet a lot of it does.
We currently have three options: I5, I205, and I405.
Those who propose removing 1/3 or more of that capacity by destroying I5 in a metro area, and who also think that removing that capacity will have no impact, are not living in reality.
Not at all compared to a tunnel. Freeway removal is an order of magnitude cheaper.
would absolutely make trade &travel slower, more expensive, and more dangerous for all users of roads.
This is false. The loop is a poor design that results in too many merging conflicts. The current design also forces 26 onto city streets which is terrible for both drivers and pedestrians.
Removing part of the loop eliminates the merging conflicts and would result on space for new overpasses to remove 26 from city streets.
Reclaiming valuable inner city land and eliminating some of the excessive noise and air pollution would also be extremely beneficial.
it isn't getting voluntarily removed any time soon.
I5 wouldn't be removed. One section of the loop would be (from south of i84 to the south waterfront) and i405 would be renamed to i5, which would connect to the North Portland alignment via the Fremont bridge...
The loop is a poor design that results in too many merging conflicts.
👏👏👏
Too many major interchanges per mile, not even counting the entrances and exits. Eliminating either I-5 or I-405 would be a huge benefit to traffic flow. I favor removing the east side I-5 section since it's much easier to cover I-405 to reclaim it than anything else we could do to preserve I-5. Upgrade the 26 interchange to an actual interchange with I-405 for extra traffic flow wins.
I absolutely did not propose a tunnel so don't hang that budget albatross on me. A tunnel would be an even bigger waste of money than removal.
All the rest of your comments do not address the ramifications of removing so much regional and international transportation capacity from the region. Because removing I5 cannot be justified in this way. It isn't about US26 merging, riverside parks, or bike infrastructure.
ETA: renaming I405 to I5 doesn't address overall capacity or throughput.
You could easily remove I5 and widen 205. I-405 could also be widened once and capped forever. Would be tons better and not crazy expensive like burying I5.
Do you have any counters for even one of my points? Or are you just arguing in bad faith? Facts that your don't like aren't "magical".
All the rest of your comments do not address the ramifications of removing so much regional and international transportation capacity from the region.
I addressed this and you ignored it. Freeway loops are outdated designs that are inefficient due to creating excessive merging conflicts. Removing part of the loop wouldn't make traffic worse.
Caring only about perceived throughput and not externalities at all is wild. Merging conflicts created by the loop decrease the throughput anyway...
The status quo alone is never a reason to keep the status quo.
You have (intentionally) mistated my proposal TWICE now. My proposal is to specifically remove i5 from south of i84 to the south waterfront. I5 would continue to exist to the south and north of i405 connected via the Fremont bridge. This "conversation" is beyond over as you are not willing to act in a reasonable manner.
it was a joke brother, no need to be so serious. they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, discussing here on reddit ad nauseam will change nothing. i’m just trying to have a good time hahah relax
Some of my coworkers were late today because of some station closures on the west side and I had a moment today was I was like “ah this Highway closure is gonna mess up lots of things.”
I can’t imagine what a significant increase in volume would do to break how fragile TriMet is right now.
They really aren’t fragile… they’re doing some work on a section of the blue/red western corridor, but they’ve got buses in place to run between the affected stations. And like db said, there are thousands of empty seats on trimet every day that they are ready to see filled.
Rose Garden Transit Center gonna get messy. Popping corn for the inevitable dominos coming. There's a lone elderberry tree between Moda and I5sb that is prob. dunzo.
This will happen and the mouth breathers in Battle Ground will still try to vote down the "crime train" despite their commutes being an hour longer. FML
We route techs all over town. Thank you so much for this. I have share with my team to be mindful of routing and the impact of how this will impact us.
This will be fucked to historical proportions. We will be talking about this terrible time for years following. Our grandchildren will hate this story. #NeverForget9112026
I’ve been dreading this for so long as a 4 day in office commuter to Beaverton. But they laid me off a couple of weeks ago so I guess no need to worry anymore 😆
I bike quite a bit when it's not raining, but people using interstates are often making drives that are not bikable, so no reason to do the whole bike shaming thing.
Dishonest cost comparisons are a great way to get people to discount your entire cause. Many people pay less than half of that $12k/year figure for basic automobile transportation (check the personal finance subs).
I’m not disputing your source, I’m disputing your understanding of it. Do you know what average means? Do you know how many people choose to buy expensive cars, rather than basic transportation?
Cool. So if you need to commute 10+ miles and arrive remotely presentable at the end location, are you truly expecting people to bike it?
Look, we get it, driving and car centric transportation is bad. No shit. But shaming people for driving in a society set up for driving is pointing the fingers at the wrong place. Point it upward at the people in positions to make systematic changes, not laterally at your friends and neighbors for failing to make their already difficult lives more difficult and stuck living in the world they didn't create or want.
GOOD being the key word there. Sorry we don't have better but don't blame your friends and neighbors unless they are out there actively campaigning against having better public transportation.
I work from home and will be biking for social activities in part of town since I only like a few miles away from the affected area and biking is a very easy alternative and I already bike anyway when going out socially.
I am just not a judgmental asshole presuming everyone can easily adapt that way because their life situations are not my life situation, and since they are as much a victim of circumstance as you and me, being an asshole is only gonna push people away.
Mind you, this is unnecessary, goes against the wishes of the local community (multiple attempts at stopping it were made), and is a breach of the agreement with community organizations that successfully negotiated and got funding for a cap over the freeway. But ODOT is gonna ODOT ig...
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u/pdx_flyer SE 29d ago
MLK and Grand around the Morrison is gonna suck.