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Council presses city and ODOT for clearer school and neighborhood protections during I-5 closure
Summary
Councilors raised concerns about school drop-off safety, neighborhood spillover and enforcement; PBOT said it is considering temporary crossing guards, parking removals, signal retiming and slow-streets tactics and will prioritize safety in East Portland and school corridors.
Councilors from multiple districts urged city staff and ODOT to provide clearer, concrete mitigation measures for neighborhoods and schools likely to see diverted traffic during the I-5 closure.
"We don't have a specific plan yet for physical attributes to place around schools," Wendy Cawley, PBOT city traffic engineer, said, but she listed options under consideration: temporarily removing parking to create right-turn or transit lanes, crossing guards, speed-reader boards and orange-barrel treatments used during the pandemic. PBOT also said it would retime 20–30 signalized intersections and maintain those timing changes while useful.
Councilors pressed for more detail and faster decisions because the start date is near and school drop-off occurs soon after summer break. They asked for advance notice to affected neighborhoods and for speed-feedback equipment, crossing-guard deployment, and monitoring to be staged in hot-spot areas. PBOT said it is still defining the geographic reach of diversions and will share specific plans as they are finalized.
