Mayor Royce Pollard of Vancouver told the Mercury earlier today that he and the Vancouver council “strongly support a 12 lane bridge.” Meanwhile, as you may have noticed, I’ve been trying all afternoon to get Portland’s Metro Regional Council director David Bragdon to say what he actually meant, in terms of lane numbers, in this morning’s Oregonian editorial on the subject, and he called back, just a moment ago.
10 lanes with a toll “would be my preferred outcome,” says Bragdon. “I’m not dogmatic about the number 10 because that’s the number of fingers or toes I have. 8 could be the right number under some circumstances, 15 could be the right number in other circumstances.”
“But what I’m trying to do with the CRC is question the traditional orthodox. Both sides want to reach an agreement on this,” he continues.
“I think a slimmer bridge can get you all the performance in terms of replacing the light rail and accommodating the traffic, my concern is that a larger bridge actually defeats its own purpose by attracting more demand than exists today. And I think that smaller gets you nearly all the plus attributes without the downside risk,” says Bragdon. “And I think it’s fair to say that I’m skeptical of the projections that the state highway people use when they’re doing these models.”
“The history of these projects is that they induce more demand, when you add more capacity, than has been projected,” he continues. “Atlanta, for example, added an unprecedented number of lane miles with the idea of reducing congestion. But in fact, demand increased in response to the new supply.”
“It’s a good discussion,” says Bragdon. “And there’s somewhat different interests across the river, I get that.”
Asked about tolling, Bragdon says: “I think rational people on both sides of the river realize that tolling is inevitable. I think there’s broad acceptance that it’s going to be tolled. And what that’s going to look like needs to be decided.”
“I think it’s going to be difficult,” Bragdon admits. “But not impossible. And we have to have something that both sides are happy with. So, crafting that sort of compromise is a hard thing, but I think it’s achievable.”
“Certainly there’s some very powerful forces that are arrayed towards the biggest possible bridge,” he admits. “But I’m calling it the way I see it.”
“I don’t think any of us, on this, want to disagree, because it is, by definition, a project that requires agreement,” he continues. “We can’t do anything over the strong objections of anybody else, so we’re all going to have to agree on something, for anything to happen. That means there’ll have to be a little give on both sides.”
There’s a Metro Council meeting on the subject this Thursday, at 2pm, followed by a project sponsors’ council meeting on Friday, scheduled for 10am. Question: How will the two sides settle their differences? Guns? Knives? Or…Spock…NO!!!!
CRC MEETING: Will be contentious…</em
It is funny because the mayor of Vancouver wants a 4 billion dollar bridge with no tolls, and he wants Oregon to pay for half of it even though the vast majority of traffic originates in his state, oh and he also will want oregon to pay 100% of the cost of expanding the I5 from Washington down into Portland so that people can drive from his sprawling town down into Portland.
My message to the Vancouver Mayor, if you want it, then you pay for it, because we have better things to spend our transportation dollars on!
A larger bridge will create its own demand? Yeah, sure… once it’s built all Portlanders will be absolutely clamoring to head over to Vancouver for the day… good thing Ted isn’t a character on The Simpsons – we’d have even less lanes…
“And I think it’s fair to say that I’m skeptical of the projections that the state highway people use when they’re doing these models.”
Um, those people are engineers. I’d love to see the calculations you scratched out on your yellow pad, Bragdon. Nice doodles in the margins.
The fact is that you can use the toll mechanism to control flow on whatever size bridge you build. If you build 20 lanes and charge $20 to cross it, you’ll reduce your traffic pretty quickly.
Econoline, Portland and it’s suburbs sprawl much further than Vancouver does.
****
Monorail!
What’s the word again?
Monorail!!!
@econoline – Of course Vancouver/WA wants to get Portland/OR to pay for it. Duh. In the end, that won’t happen, but wouldn’t you try to slip that in if you were part of the negotiations? Fuck, I’d ask Portland for a pony, too.
@YouKnowWho – Portlanders might not be rushing to visit Vancouver, but they’re sure as shit moving permanently in this direction at at faster clip. And why not? Better schools, cheaper houses, etc. If you remove that last bottleneck between the two cities, I bet you’ll see that emigration happen at a higher rate.
The reality of this is that, yes, they will have to settle for a bridge larger than they currently need/want. This is a large fucking project, so they have to plan on a bridge that meets demand for decades into the future. I don’t envy the people involved, trying to come up with a plan that meets future needs while discouraging overuse and simultaneously figuring out how to pay for the damn thing (all with 87 different chefs in the kitchen).
Matt, can you clarify an alarming sentence: “…get you all the performance in terms of replacing the light rail and accommodating the traffic”. Does that mean he doesn’t want light rail now? Or did he just mis-speak?
For clarification:
I think he means he wants the light rail on the bridge, too. It’s just a curious sentence formulation.
Yes, not only do I want light rail, it is one of the basic conditions already adopted way back when by the six governing boards in two states (the two cities, the two planning agencies, the two transit agencies). As far as all those parties are concerned, light rail is included in all versions of the options now under consideration. If my was sentence formulated curiously because it was hedgehog the climbing up my pant leg as I drove by myself in an SUV on highway 26 while Matt was at talking me. Last night I mean.
Can we just figure out the fucking bridge and build the damn thing so I don’t have to hear about it anymore?