Authorities try to avoid ‘carmageddon’ during 5-week closure of I-5 southbound

Bridgetown Trucking uses 35 trucks to ship everything from silicon chips to 2,000-pound bags of sugar around Portland.

On Sept. 11, freight haulers like Bridgetown are going to see their routes severely disrupted by the closure of all southbound lanes of Interstate 5 for five weeks.

“This is unprecedented,” said Bridgetown CEO Dave Chalmers. “We’ve never seen this in Portland.”

The main reason for the closure is to allow crews to resurface the interstate. Parts of the road bed haven’t been replaced since 1985. Crews will also earthquake-proof the overpasses by adding new beams; install better signage; build an expanded passing lane; and improve the storm drains by adding filters that keep trash out of the Willamette River.

ODOT hopes to be able to get everything done in five weeks, but it depends on the weather. Things like pouring concrete, striping roads and laying tarmac don’t do well in the rain. Interim Director Chris Warner said the transportation agency considered leaving one lane open, or doing the work on the weekends. But it would have been more expensive and taken longer.

“Keeping one lane open would have meant daily hours-long traffic jams for up to four months,” Warner said. “Weekend closures would have stretched out to more than two summers.”

So commuters and transportation-dependent businesses are preparing for a shutdown lasting from September well into October. Chalmers expects congestion to rank at a seven on a scale of one to 10. He says he’s spent eight months working out alternative routes, such as sending his trucks around on Interstate 405 and OR 217. But he’s worried the I-5 closure will be only part of the problem.

“Cornelius Pass is currently under construction,” Chalmers said. “That is a main path to Hillsboro and it’s closed!”

Every day, his drivers will have to sit down with planners and go over routes. Usually, they drive eight hours a day. But that could climb as high as 11 hours if congestion gets really bad. And legally, drivers can’t drive any longer.

“If I get somebody that’s stuck out there that time, we’re going to be driving somebody else out to take over the truck,” Chalmers said. That means more vehicles on the road and even more congestion.

Chalmers is thinking about opening a graveyard shift to deliver supplies when the roads are less busy.

About 120,000 vehicles drive I-5 through Portland every day, according to state transportation officials. That includes 11,700 trucks carrying over 100 million dollars worth of goods.

Authorities are expecting the closure to stretch rush-hour traffic so it runs from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“This is going to have a huge impact on how people get around,” said Hannah Schafer, a spokesperson with the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

“Travel times will be two to three times longer than normal, with congestion likely to back up into Washington and onto local Portland streets.”

Closure to affect businesses, schools and events

Yanna Hortona cuts hair at L&M Hair Lounge on Northeast Broadway, just a few blocks east of the closure. She’s built wiggle room into her calendar and is warning clients to expect delays. She says other hairdressers are scheduling work elsewhere.

“They’re going to our other location which is in the Southeast,” Hortona said. “They just don’t want to deal with it at all.”

Speaking while getting her hair washed at L&M Hair, Courtney Trent says she’s not worried about her own short commute. But Trent works as an administrative assistant at Parkrose High School, and she is concerned about student attendance.

“I’m worried about the buses being on time. A lot of our students take the bus so there might be a few more tardies this year,” Trent said. “We’re just going to have to put up with it.”

There are a few key organizations in the affected area that need particular attention. For example, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center has more than 500 staffed beds and 25 emergency beds. While it’s impossible to schedule emergency health needs, Legacy officials are encouraging patients to plan alternate routes and extra travel time for appointments.

With traffic likely to be much worse during the highway closure, Rick Graves with Portland Fire and Rescue said certain priorities get even more important. Graves argues drivers need to be extra careful to pull to the right for emergency vehicles.

“If you are in this zone, stuck in traffic, and you see an ambulance approaching with their lights and sirens on… there’s going to be a critical patient in the back of that ambulance,” Graves said.

Big traffic events will continue through the closure, as well. Throughout the closure, the Moda Center will continue hosting Trail Blazers, Fire and Winterhawks games, Disney on Ice and concerts with Doja Cat and Chance the Rapper. David Kim with ODOT says the highway will close after the Weezer concert on Sept. 11.

“The last ramp to be closed will be the I-5 southbound on-ramp at Wheeler Avenue at the Moda Center,” Kim said. “We want to make sure that concert goers can leave the Moda Center timely.”

For other events, people are being asked to take mass transit or stay afterwards to eat while congestion subsides.

Agencies offer transportation alternatives

While congestion is expected to be bad, there might be one winner. Mary Hill with TriMet says MAX light rail should be running on schedule.

“MAX yellow line runs parallel to the I-5 from the Expo Center through North Portland and into downtown. We have a large free park-and-ride at Delta Park where you can connect to yellow line trains that will run every 15 minutes or better,” Hill said.

TriMet will also be running two-car trains throughout the closure, which can carry 330 people at once.

But some people will drive through the Rose Quarter. The Portland Bureau of Transportation wants to keep those cars on main arterials and limit trips through neighborhoods.

“We are setting up traffic monitoring cameras so that we can monitor traffic and do signal timing adjustments,” said PBOT spokeswoman Hannah Schafer.

PBOT expects congestion to be focused along streets in North and Northeast Portland, like Greeley, Interstate, Mississippi, Vancouver, Broadway, Martin Luther King Boulevard and 15th and 33^rd avenues. The agency will put traffic barrels around schools to stop drivers from cutting through neighborhoods.

“We’re also going to use things like temporary speed reader boards,” said Schafer. “We’re also buying a bunch of extra crossing flags, knowing that kids are going back to school right at this time.”

Portland Public Schools is planning to set up bike buses so students can meet in neighborhoods with a parent and then bike to school en masse. Similar bike buses are being arranged for adults, too.

Schafer said the city is working on some freebies with companies like Biketown and Lime.

“We’re going to be providing free 10-minute rides on e-bikes and e-scooters for any weekday trip starting or ending in the Rose Quarter Transit Center,” Schafer said.

The discounts will apply automatically when opening a Biketown or Lime app in the right area.

PBOT has been proactively filling potholes, refreshing striping and cleaning bike routes in preparation. It’s also launching a public messaging campaign called “Shift Your Trip,” encouraging people to shift the timing of their journey or to take alternate forms of transportation.

In case the traffic congestion isn’t enough, people who work and live nearby might have to deal with additional noise and dust. Crews will be chipping material off the deck with a jackhammer-like machine for about five days and nights. The noise from the machine is about 110 decibels, the equivalent of a chainsaw or a rock concert. But contractor Kenn Hallquist with Hamilton/Sundt downplayed concerns.

“We’ll be on an elevated deck, so a lot of the noise will be up in the air and so it won’t permeate down to the city streets,” said Hallquist.

The grinding will kick up dust, too, but project officials say much of that will be suppressed by water sprayers.

Back on Northeast Broadway, the owner of Elmer’s Flag and Banner shop, James Neste, expects less foot traffic because of the closure.

“How much? That’s probably what we’re going to have to react to, right?”

Neste commutes from Vancouver. “I’m definitely going to have to drive in earlier and be creative. I’ll probably trust Google Maps a little more.”

The City of Portland has asked companies like Google Maps and Apple not to direct drivers through neighborhoods during the closure.

Drivers can check real-time routing conditions via websites like TripCheck and www.i5RoseQuarter.org.

One final thing to remember: No matter how well the closure goes, it is only the first part of a multi-year project. The northbound lanes of I-5 will be closed in the same area next summer.