The Week Observed: July 25, 2025

What City Observatory Did This Week

Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. The I-5 Rose Quarter project is over budget at $2.1 billion, just lost more than $400 million in federal funding, and failed to get any additional funding from the recently adjourned Oregon Legislature. And the Governor says she's only going to ask for money for basic maintenance functions at the state transportation department. Nonetheless, the Oregon Transportation Commission voted to continue the project, even though, as the Commission Chair noted, "With that said, everyone in this room needs to understand that beyond that, there is no money… We are not saying that we are going to move forward with a complete Rose Quarter."

As City Observatory's Joe Cortright testified to the Commission prior to the vote, proceeding with the project without funding in hand is a recipe for worsening the department's already perilous financial state.

ODOT staff haven't accurately predicted or managed costs and have been excessively optimistic about future revenues. They've marched ahead with mega-projects they didn't have full funding for, doing anything—saying anything—just to get a project started, knowing that once it was started, you would have not choice but to provide the money to finish it.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Transportation Commission is repeating that same mistake, committing to continuing work on a project without the needed funding to finish it, setting up future policy makers with an even worse financial problem than the state faces today.

Must Read

Seattle begins to realize it has a ward system of government. Ryan Packer has an interesting analysis of how the election of City Council members from each of seven districts is re-shaping the governance of the city. Prior to 20xx, all councilors were elected at-large, but since then seven of the nine councilors were elected from geographic, single-member districts. And unsurprisingly, at least to those who are familiar with say Philadelphia or Chicago (or many other cities), the officials representing these areas are demanding their voices be heard about matters affecting their part of the city.

In a departure from past practice, a new dynamic has been developing since Seattle’s 2023 council elections in which the voices of the seven district councilmembers are elevated up over their colleagues when it comes to issues within district borders. This is happening across multiple areas, including human services and transportation, and could play a

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