PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Transportation Commission voted Thursday to keep the struggling Rose Quarter Improvement Project alive, rejecting the possibility of shelving the project and directing the Oregon Department of Transportation to use its limited available funding to keep construction moving — though with a call for the state legislature to step in before the budget crunch arrives.

The $2 billion project aims to widen I-5 through the Rose Quarter to resolve a traffic bottleneck and build a 1,500-foot cover over the freeway to reconnect the historic Albina neighborhood , which was split in half when I-5 was originally built. The cover is a key goal of project partners like the nonprofit Albina Vision Trust, which is leading an effort to revitalize Albina.

The project has strug

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