Does anyone know the progress or completion timeline of the widening of Portland north of Memorial?

ODOT Public Affairs would be a good place to start - 521-6000.

Portland b/w Waterloo & just north of Covell is complete. They're about to start on Covell down to 2nd (178th).

I used to live in the Deer Creek area and recall Portland would back up 3/4 of a mile at certain intersections (150th, 164th) during rush hour. Why exactly did they widen Portland starting on the north end rather than the south end? It seems to me like the south portion that is currently 2 lanes (between 220th and Memorial) would be a bottleneck, seeing how those driving within the northern portion of the road to be widened either are driving to other cities north on 74 (ie Crescent) or live within the area. However, Portland carries a lot of traffic for people that live within the Deer Creek/Edmond areas, mostly on or south of 220th.

They probably didn't want to work with the backup as they moved north. Not that I agree with this planning.

There are actually several reasons to start on the north end first.

If engineering studies show the whole corridor needs to be upgraded and you want to be sure the whole project will be built and not stopped halfway due to a "that's far enough" mentality... start on the north end and work south. The project has to be completed that way.

Purchasing right of way will ALWAYS play a factor, and if the North sections were acquired first and the money for costruction was available it might have been decided to seize the moment and begin construction.

However, in this situation I believe the northern sections were done first since the bridges in that area were in the worst shape and in dire need of replacement.

Another issue is that when the south end is being worked on, a majority of the people that use that stretch of roadway will use the other roads in the area (May, Penn, Western, and any number of the east/west roads). They are in the process of widening almost all of those roads now so that when they reach the southend of the Portland project, all of the other roads in the area will be able to accomodate the additional traffic.