With Portland’s long delayed Rose Quarter freeway expansion set to begin construction this summer, a coalition of graffiti artists has sued to stop the project.

“The essence of my spray painting can only be felt in natural light,” a Street Artist who preferred to be anonymous complained. “LED lighting is a crime against graffiti artists everywhere.”

The argument that the freeway walls and overpasses are not meant to be canvases literally fell on deaf ears.

“I can’t hear you,” Street Artist Ben Thayer said. “The roar from the freeways while I perform my art damaged my hearing.”

“As Portlanders, we of course care deeply about the rich tapestry that keeps Portland diverse and weird, so we will begin negotiations with the Street Artists,” droned ODOT spokesperson Delany Long and then sighed deeply.

“What did he say?” Thayer said.

The last delay to the overdue project led to a billion dollar cap being included to connect parts of the Albina neighborhood that were sundered by the construction of I-5 in the 1960s.

While the original estimates for the freeway expansion were between $1.18 to $1.25 billion, the decision to add a cap to the freeway increased costs to more than $2 billion, state officials say.

“Dealing with the ‘street art’ lawsuit will further delay and increase costs,” said Bill Ding, construction manager. “So I guess they want us to put in skylights or something?”

As funds were allocated to deal with the latest lawsuit, a group of residents were organizing to sue and stop the plan to toll that section of freeway since it would cause cars to divert into their neighborhood.

“But ODOT needs the toll revenue to pay for the project,” spokesman Long said. “But of course the voices of all Portlanders are important and yada, yada, yada…”

At that point Long was led away in tears.

At publication time the cost of the project had risen again to $2.5 billion, no wait, now $3 billion. No, wait…