I wrote last week about the farce in progress in inner north and northeast Portland, where yet another set of soulless, taxpayer-subsidized apartment bunkers is going to be slapped up. This time the weasels are using Black reparations as the sales pitch. Shame on them. But of course, the local media fall for it hook, line, and sinker, repeating the joke with a straight face at every mention of the project:

rebuilding Lower Albina, the historically Black community destroyed decades ago for a series of urban development projects…. a broader plan by local nonprofit Albina Vision Trust to revitalize the neighborhood, once a thriving hub for Portland’s Black community….

On and on it goes. Even if you think the public should still be paying for the sins of 50 or 60 years ago, it’s anybody’s guess how the “Albina vision” will do much, if anything, to right those wrongs. All that’s known for sure is that the usual suspects in the developer, construction, and “nonprofit” ranks will make some sweet bank. 

Today we read that even more public money has been found for this boondoggle. Thanks to our grouchy old bikey stoner lame duck congressman, Earl the Pearl Blumenauer, there’s now $450 million in federal funds sitting there to cap the freeway. Just what we need! The O‘s got the story here.

But buried way down at the end is the real news. The City Hall car haters are about to cast their spell over Broadway and Weidler Streets:

The U.S. Department of Transportation also granted $38.4 million to the Portland Bureau of Transportation, to redesign two main roads in the Lower Albina neighborhood, North and Northeast Broadway and Weidler.

Oh. Em. Gee. You can just imagine what that’s going to look like.

If you’ve traveled on that stretch of Broadway and Weidler lately, you know that the main thing those streets need, especially Weidler, is repaving. The potholes, the ruts, the trashed pavement, they’re a real mess. Good luck with your suspension. 

There’s no money for fixing that, we’re told – you’ll have to renew the 10-cents-a-gallon city gas tax. But for bike toys and crap apartments? The sky’s the limit.