How to make new friends in Portland

Rose Quarter Project Needs $1B

The project to expand I-5 at the Rose Quarter got a half billion boost with federal funding to cap the interstate. But the project is still short at least $1 billion, and the financial outlook for the Oregon Department of Transportation just got dicier with Gov. Tina Kotek’s decision not to toll Portland-area highways. [Portland Mercury]

Challenge to New Rate Hike

Portland General Electric’s customers have already seen a 30% increase in power bills since 2022. And now the official consumer advocacy group Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board is asking the state’s utility regulator to reject a new 7.4% rate hike, which would take effect in January 2025. An analysis by the consumer group found that upwards of 90% of the rate increase would go toward greater profits for PGE shareholders and other uses forbidden by regulators. [Oregonian 🔒]

• Related: The relentless utility rate hikes. [City Cast Portland 🎧]

City’s Biggest Pothole?

Willamette Week is holding a contest for the biggest pothole on city streets. Send photos of your local spot to the newspaper for an unspecified prize. The city’s streets were in rough shape before the winter storms, but now Cesar Chavez Boulevard and 82nd Avenue, for example, are both even more treacherous. [Willamette Week]

The Funky, Community-Driven Sound of Black Portland in the ’60s and ’70s

North Portland’s Albina neighborhood used to be home to a thriving music scene, where Black musicians would perform nightly in nightclubs and community spaces. we’re now all able to hear what it was like, thanks to the Albina Music Trust’s new digital community archive. The project’s lead archivist, Bobby Smith, and Norman Sylvester, a longtime musician who grew up playing in the Albina music scene, take us back in time.