The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT’) has a big management problem: huge cost overruns on highway mega-projects. Just three Portland area highway projects—The Interstate Bridge Replacement, the I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening and the I-205 Abernethy Bridge have chalked up cost overruns totaling $4.8 billion in just the past five years.| City Observatory
Every time Oregonians are asked to pony up more money for roads, ODOT trots out a report saying that they’re definitely going to improve their management and stop blowing through budgets. And they’re doing it again. In 2025, as Yogi Berra would say, “It’s deja vu all over again.”| City Observatory
IBR is once again delaying releasing a new cost estimate for the Interstate Bridge Project. It’s an ominous sign that the cost is going to be much, much higher.| City Observatory
A new report purports to provide a roadmap for accountability at the Oregon Department of Transportation. In short, its a work of conflicted consultants, with a long history of cost overruns and excessive spending, offering slightly recycled versions of measures that have failed to control costs for the past decade.| City Observatory