Nobody is seriously suggesting a 16-lane freeway in PDX. The freeway expansion that's being proposed is to remove an awful bottleneck on I-5, where it cuts dow

Nobody is seriously suggesting a 16-lane freeway in PDX. The freeway expansion that's being proposed is to remove an awful bottleneck on I-5, where it cuts down to just two lanes in each direction near the Rose Quarter. The entire rest of that road is three lanes. This is on the major US West Coast interstate highway, going through the largest city in the state. I know of 100k person towns in the middle of nowhere that have better highway infrastructure than this. On everything else you mention, we are in agreement. The increased density of the inner East side is hopefully going to play a big role in keeping costs down and avoiding massive sprawl as the city grows.