Interstate 205 (Oregon–Washington)
Interstate 205 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon and Washington, United States. The north–south freeway serves as a bypass route of I-5 along the east side of Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. It intersects several major highways and serves Portland International Airport.
The freeway is long and connects to I-5 at both of its termini: to the south in Tualatin, Oregon, and to the north in Salmon Creek, Washington. I-205 is named the Veterans Memorial Highway and East Portland Freeway No. 64 in Oregon. From Oregon City to Vancouver, the corridor is paralleled by a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian trail, as well as portions of the MAX Light Rail system between Clackamas and northeastern Portland.
A freeway to serve as an eastern bypass of Portland and Vancouver was conceived in a 1943 plan for the area, and in the 1950s was included in the federal government's preliminary plans for the Interstate Highway System. In 1958, I-205 was assigned as the designation for the eastern bypass; the Oregon state government initially planned it to travel east through Lake Oswego and close to inner neighborhoods of Portland but protests from several communities led to the route of I-205 being moved further east and south into other areas of Clackamas County.
Construction began in 1967 with work on the Abernethy Bridge over the Willamette River, which opened in 1970. By 1972, I-205 was extended west to Tualatin and north to Gladstone but the Portland section was delayed by opposition from local governments. A six-lane design was chosen as a compromise, which allowed for the freeway to reach Portland in 1977. The Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge, spanning the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver, opened on December 15, 1982. The bridge connected to the Washington section of I-205, which had been completed in two stages between 1975 and 1976. The remaining in Portland opened on March 8, 1983, and two years later, additional ramps were constructed to connect with I-84.
Route description
I-205 functions primarily as a bypass of I-5 in the Portland metropolitan area, and serves Vancouver, Washington, and the eastern suburban areas of Portland, Oregon. It is listed as part of the National Highway System, which identifies routes that are important to the national economy, defense, and mobility, and Washington state recognizes it as a Highway of Statewide Significance. The Oregon portion of I-205 is designated as East Portland Freeway No. 64 under the state's named highway system. In 2000, the Oregon portion was designated by the state legislature as the Veterans Memorial Highway, and has since been used for an annual vehicle convoy to mark Veterans Day.Oregon Department of Transportation and Washington State Department of Transportation maintain I-205 within their respective states. Both agencies conduct annual surveys of traffic on segments of the freeway, the results of which are expressed in terms of annual average daily traffic, a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. In 2018, average traffic volumes on the Oregon portion ranged from 86,800 in Stafford to 170,900 near Division Street in Portland. In 2019, the Washington portion ranged from 47,000 in Salmon Creek to 160,000 on the Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge. The Glenn L. Jackson Bridge is the busier of the two main bridges over the Columbia River in the Portland area; the older Interstate Bridge on I-5 carried a daily average of 138,500 vehicles in 2019.
Washington and Clackamas counties
I-205 begins at a semi-directional T interchange with I-5 in eastern Tualatin, a suburb in Washington County, Oregon. The four-lane freeway travels east along Saum Creek and the Tualatin River into Clackamas County, where it passes a mix of exurban neighborhoods, forests, and farmland. After crossing the river, I-205 turns southeasterly into West Linn and runs along the banks of the Willamette River near Willamette Falls; the freeway has a scenic overlook of the falls for northbound traffic. After an interchange with Oregon Route 43, I-205 expands to six lanes and crosses the Willamette River on the Abernethy Bridge, which runs for into Oregon City and is capped to the east by an interchange with OR 99E. The freeway passes Oregon City's Amtrak train station, and then follows the railroad north to a junction with OR 213, which becomes concurrent with I-205.The freeway continues north across the Clackamas River, passing through residential and industrial areas in Gladstone and Clackamas. Near Johnson City, I-205 intersects the west end of OR 212, which provides access to Boring and Mount Hood. The concurrency with OR 213 ends at a partial cloverleaf interchange with OR 224—the Sunrise Expressway—near several radio towers on the west side of Mount Talbert. I-205 briefly expands to eight lanes and intersects several roads near the Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center and Clackamas Town Center, a regional shopping mall, then continues north through an unincorporated residential area between Milwaukie and Happy Valley. The freeway travels north with tracks on the west side for the MAX Green Line, a light rail service operated by TriMet, and enters Portland in Multnomah County.
Portland and Vancouver
I-205 passes through eastern Portland about from downtown, and runs parallel to OR 213 on 82nd Avenue and the I-205 Transitway that carries the MAX Green Line. From the Clackamas Town Center, the freeway travels through residential areas in Lents neighborhood at the foot of Mount Scott, home to the Willamette National Cemetery. I-205 intersects U.S. Route 26 at Powell Boulevard near Kelly Butte and the Jade District in Powellhurst-Gilbert. North of Division Street, the freeway marks the boundary between the neighborhoods of Montavilla and Hazelwood, and the MAX Green Line switches to the east side. I-205 then intersects Stark, Burnside, and Gilsan streets via a series of weaved ramps near Mall 205 and the Adventist Health Portland hospital.File:Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge aerial view from southeast 2015-10-20.jpg|thumb|right|Aerial view of the Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge, which carries I-205 across the Columbia River|alt=Aerial view of a highway bridge on columns crossing a river and a narrow island.
North of Gilsan Street, the freeway intersects I-84 and US 30 near the Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center, where the MAX Green Line turns west. I-205 and I-84/US 30 travel parallel to each other for along the base of Rocky Butte, where they follow a section of the MAX Red Line on the I-205 Transitway. I-84/US 30 turns east towards the Columbia River Gorge at Northeast Fremont Street, while I-205 continues north around the suburban enclave of Maywood Park with the light rail trackway in its median. The freeway intersects US 30 Bypass and turns northeast to pass under a railroad in Parkrose. The MAX Red Line diverges west from the freeway towards Portland International Airport, which is accessed from I-205 via the Airport Way interchange on the south side of the Columbia River. I-205 crosses the Columbia River and Government Island on the eight-lane Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge, a concrete segmental bridge that spans between Oregon and Washington.
On the Washington side of the river, I-205 serves the northeastern side of Vancouver and its unincorporated suburbs in Clark County. The freeway intersects State Route 14, a regional east–west freeway that connects to Downtown Vancouver and the Camas–Washougal area in a partial combination interchange on the north side of the river. I-205 curves northwest to intersect Mill Plain Boulevard in a partial cloverleaf interchange and Northeast 18th Street in a half-diamond interchange before it continues north through predominantly residential neighborhoods. The six-lane freeway then reaches a cloverleaf interchange with another east–west freeway, SR 500, on the east side of the Vancouver Mall. I-205 narrows to four lanes and travels northwest along LaLonde Creek to the community of Salmon Creek, where it terminates at an interchange with I-5. The incomplete interchange is located southwest of Washington State University Vancouver and requires some movements from I-5 to and from Vancouver to be made via two half-diamond interchanges on Northeast 134th Street.
Multi-use trail
A multi-use bicycle and pedestrian trail follows I-205 for much of its distance on the Oregon side of the Portland metropolitan area, and connects to the Springwater Corridor trail near the Foster Road exit. The paved trail parallels the highway and the I-205 Transitway for from Oregon City to Southeast 23rd Street in Vancouver. The trail is situated in the middle of the Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge between lanes of traffic with barriers but has no access to Government Island. The bridge was designed to support light rail trains in the median, which would replace the trail, but the route was not considered by transit authorities. ODOT maintains the I-205 Trail but some trash-pickup and site-cleanup responsibilities were transferred to the Portland city government in 2018.History
Planning and routing debate
In 1943, New York-based planner Robert Moses authored the Portland Improvement Plan, which included a "scenic thoroughfare" that would bypass Portland to the east and an inner loop of major roads in the downtown area. An earlier comprehensive plan from 1912 had envisioned a series of arterial highways along the future corridor, which would lead to a bridge over the Columbia River via Government Island. The corridor was among four Portland-area routes included in a 1955 plan from the federal Bureau of Public Roads for what became the Interstate Highway System, which was approved one year later. The Oregon State Highway Commission designated it as the Laurelhurst Freeway, running along Northeast 39th Avenue—now César E. Chávez Boulevard—through Laurelhurst neighborhood between Tualatin and crossing the Columbia River via a toll-free bridge. The bridge's proposed location was later shifted west to Northeast 30th Avenue to accommodate a runway extension at Portland International Airport.The American Association of State Highway Officials approved I-205 as the designation for the Portland–Vancouver bypass freeway in November 1958. In 1961, it was added to Washington's state highway system as a branch of Primary State Highway 1 and was renumbered to State Route 205 in 1964. To connect with its parent route I-5 at Tualatin, the Laurelhurst Freeway would turn west to cross the Willamette River at Lake Oswego and travel along the south side of the lake. It was planned to be the last major freeway in the Portland area to be completed under the 1955 plan; construction was projected to be finished by 1974 at a cost of $70 million. A corresponding western bypass of Portland was omitted from plans due to the topography of the Tualatin Mountains and a low population, but in the 1960s was unsuccessfully proposed as the Rivergate Freeway.
The first set of alternatives for the Laurelhurst Freeway, which was renamed the Central East Side Freeway and later referred to as I-205, were presented to the public in 1961 and 1962 ahead of a formal routing study. In December 1961, the Oregon State Highway Department presented five alternatives for the east–west section through Lake Oswego that drew opposition from community members and the local school district, which feared it would isolate the schools from homes. The Laurelhurst Community Council also organized opposition to the freeway plans at public hearings the following month; local residents feared disruption of the neighborhood's character, and an influx of low-income and multi-family development. In April 1963, responding to a petition drive from residents, the Lake Oswego City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing any routing of I-205 in the city and a bridge over the Willamette River that would induce freeway construction.
In September 1963, a series of public hearings were held by the Oregon State Highway Department for an alternative proposal for I-205. The new route would cross the Willamette River south of Lake Oswego but travel further east of Portland along 111th Avenue and cross the Columbia River east of the airport at Government Island. Another alternative would remove the Lake Oswego alignment in favor of an east–west route along Division Street and Powell Boulevard from I-5 at the Marquam Bridge, which had already been proposed for the Mount Hood Freeway. After initial disagreements, the city governments of West Linn and Milwaukie joined with a local chamber of commerce to support the Lake Oswego and 111th Avenue alternatives, while Lake Oswego remained opposed.
The Oregon State Highway Commission promised in 1963 not to pursue a Lake Oswego alignment that year because it would not be possible with opposition from the city government, but delayed its final decision by several months. In June 1964, the Portland–Vancouver Metropolitan Transportation Study Technical Advisory Committee, a separate planning body formed in 1960 to produce a comprehensive plan, submitted an alignment to the state that would follow Tryon Creek along the northern edge of Lake Oswego and turn northeast to run in a trench along Northeast 52nd Avenue through Milwaukie and Portland. The route would then turn west to cross the Columbia River west of the airport and continue through eastern Vancouver along 54th Avenue towards Salmon Creek. The PVVMTS used an electronic computer system to compile and analyze various routes on the corridor over a four-year period to produce its recommendation.
The PVMTS-recommended route faced opposition from public officials in Vancouver, Lake Oswego, and Multnomah County; as well as citizens at public hearings held in Milwaukie, eastern Portland, Lake Oswego, and Glencoe. Other proposals from political and commercial groups included routing the east–west leg as far south as Canby and as far east as Gresham. The Multnomah County government remained supportive of an east–west route that used the Mount Hood Freeway corridor, which would connect with a north–south leg along 96th Avenue in eastern Portland. The corridor was estimated to cost $38 million less than the PVMTS plan. In early July, several neighborhood groups who opposed the 52nd Avenue route organized the Portland Citizens Freeway Committee; at a meeting in late August, the committee presented a petition with 7,000 signatures to the Oregon State Highway Commission.
On October 14, 1964, in a report submitted to the Oregon State Highway Commission that proposed an eight-lane freeway that would cost approximately $90 million to construct, the Oregon State Highway Department endorsed the Mount Hood Freeway and 96th Avenue alignment for I-205. The decision drew criticism from members of the PVMTS, particularly in Clark County on the Washington side, and the Portland City Planning Commission despite the city's earlier support of the 96th Avenue alignment. In early December, the Oregon State Highway Commission organized a week-long public hearing and exhibit for the proposed corridor at the Portland Public Auditorium, which drew 600 to 700 people. At the hearing, the City of Gresham and City of Camas joined the Multnomah County Commissioners in their support of the 96th Avenue alignment, while the City of Portland declined to endorse a specific plan.
The Oregon State Highway Commission had planned to send its own recommendation to the Bureau of Public Roads but delayed action due to a major flood in December 1964 that destroyed several highways. The commissioners considered moving I-205 beyond Portland's city limits to avoid confrontations with the city government, which later opened negotiations after pressure from state legislators. The commission endorsed the Mount Hood—96th Avenue alignment in March 1965. The Portland Planning Commission responded with the 52nd Avenue alignment through Laurelhurst in lieu of wider arterial streets, and also ordered a new east–west option near the Sellwood Bridge and along Johnson Creek to avoid Lake Oswego. In April, the Portland City Council voted 4–1 to reject the state's 96th Avenue alignment but took no action on the Planning Commission's proposed route.
Facing a July 1965 deadline on the routing decision imposed by the Bureau of Public Roads, which was later extended to September, the Oregon State Highway Department turned to a new corridor that would avoid the city of Portland. In May 1965, the department proposed an extended version of the 96th Avenue alignment that would continue further south, cross the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, and turn west towards Tualatin. The new alignment would be over the allocated mileage for I-205, which would require additional approval from the BPR, and had been previously proposed in March as part of the Central Clackamas Freeway. The West Linn–96th alignment was given tentative approval by the BPR and was sent by the Oregon State Highway Commission to local governments in June as an "all or nothing" option. While they continued to work on their favored Mount Hood alignment, the City of Portland agreed to cooperate with the state on the new I-205 alignment, which would pass through only a small portion of the Lents neighborhood.
On September 8, 1965, the Portland City Council approved the state's West Linn–96th alignment for I-205 following the BPR's rejection of funds for the Mount Hood Freeway. A day earlier, the Washington State Highway Commission, having rejected an earlier proposal from Clark County to extend the freeway to Ridgefield, approved the location of the freeway's bridge over the Columbia River at Government Island, as well as a tentative route through eastern Vancouver to Salmon Creek. By October, the new Oregon alignment had gained the approval of all local governments along its route except for Washington County, which proposed a western bypass that was rejected by the state government.
The Oregon State Highway Commission adopted the West Linn–96th alignment on November 19, 1965, and forwarded the proposal to the BPR for approval despite opposition from Washington County and residents at public hearings. The Washington side's routing was finalized in late December and was also forwarded to the BPR. The BPR approved the revised routing in Oregon in March 1966; this was followed two months later by approval of Washington's alignment. I-205 was also integrated into the state highway system of Oregon as East Portland Freeway Highway No. 64 on April 21, 1966. The 52nd Avenue alignment was revived as a separate freeway proposal in a long-term plan but was never fully funded. In 1969, the federal government approved the Mount Hood Freeway as part of the relocation of I-80N from the existing Banfield Expressway; the new alignment would have been partially concurrent with I-205. The move was reversed in 1974 when the Mount Hood Freeway was canceled entirely in 1974.