Global InformationMount Hood Freeway information
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2008) |
Mount Hood Freeway | |
|---|---|
 Proposed Mount Hood Freeway corridor highlighted in red | |
| Route information | |
| Length | 6 mi[1] (9.7 km) |
| History | Canceled in 1974 |
| Major junctions | |
| West end |   I-5 / US 26 in Portland |
  I-80N / I-205 in Portland | |
| East end | US 26 in Sandy |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Oregon |
| Highway system | |
| |
The Mount Hood Freeway is a partially constructed but never to be completed freeway alignment of U.S. Route 26 and Interstate 80N (now Interstate 84), which would have run through southeast Portland, Oregon. Related projects would have continued the route through the neighboring suburb of Gresham, out to the city of Sandy.
The original plans for the freeway were presented by the Oregon State Highway Department as part of a 1955 report that proposed 14 new highways in the Portland metropolitan area. (Urban planner Robert Moses drafted Portland's original postwar infrastructure plan.)[2]
The proposed route was to run parallel to the existing alignment of US 26 on Powell Boulevard, and would have required the destruction of 1,750 long-standing Portland homes and one percent of the Portland housing stock. Plans for the freeway triggered a revolt in Portland in the late 1960s and early 1970s, leading to its eventual cancellation. Plans for other proposed freeways in Portland were also scrapped, including Interstate 505. Funds for the project (and other canceled freeways) were spent on other transportation projects, including the first section of the MAX Light Rail system.
When the freeway was canceled, a segment was already completed southeastwards from East Burnside Road and Southeast Powell Blvd in Gresham, continuing to Sandy, which remains in use today.[citation needed]
- ^ Young, Bob (March 9, 2005). "Highway to Hell". Willamette Week. Archived from the original on April 30, 2007. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
- ^ "Moses Offers Plan for Portland Jobs" (New York Times, November 11, 1943)