Boondoggles

The US Department of Transportation just awarded $450 million to the $1.9-billion Rose Quarter 1-5 project, which opponents have long called one of America’s most-notorious highway boondoggles.

"Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis," the letter states.

Presented by local transportation authorities as a simple bridge replacement, an expensive, oversized highway expansion threatens to worsen congestion in Vancouver and Portland

Plans for a major freeway expansion based on over-inflated traffic projections are a wrongheaded way to deal with the region’s rapid population growth.

Here's a self-defeating new highway that will merely exacerbate suburban sprawl — reinforcing the very conditions that are causing the traffic problems in the first place!