Back in the late ‘90s, a short section of road near Rhododendron, Oregon was particularly prone to car crashes.
As the city of Portland had grown, Route US-26, the regional highway that connects the city to the ski and recreation areas on Mount Hood, had become increasingly congested.
Between the villages of Wildwood and Wemme in particular, these increases had created dangerous driving conditions; in a draft NEPA document exploring highway infrastructure upgrades in the region, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) noted that the accident rate on US-26 was twice as high as those in other primarily rural, non-freeway highways.
So, in 1998, over 650 residents, recurrent visitors, and patrons of local business signed a letter to the Oregon Department of Transportation expressing “great concern and fear for their personal safety” due, in particular, to “the lack of a left turn [lane]” between Wildwood and Wemme.
Approximately forty driveways and side streets fed into those 1.26 miles of highway, creating a safety hazard for cars turning onto and off from the highway. Cars turning off the highway had to stop in the fast lane to wait for a gap in oncoming traffic; cars turning onto the highway had no median to enter as they picked up speed.
During the five year period surrounding the letter to ODOT, there were 14 crashes along that section of road – two of them fatal.
In response to the letter, ODOT began scoping solutions, with the goal of widening the road to match the sections of highway to the east and west.
But this project was technically under FHWA jurisdiction, and would thus require NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) review.
The Backdrop
This part of Oregon is, and was, infamous for its public opposition to development. Two decades prior, the FHWA had set off on a NEPA review for a highway widening effort, releasing its Draft EIS a year later (oh, the good old days of a one year timeline to Draft EIS). As part of the review, FHWA had sent out an archaeologist to the project area, who determined that it did not contain any sites “listed in, nominated to, or determined eligible in the National Register [of Historic Places.” That is, it was not a ‘historic property’ under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and thus didn’t require formal NHPA review.
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