The CRC will never die. Why? Because traffic is still a bottleneck, the metro area's still growing by leaps and bounds and the old crossing is still decrepit and threatening to fall into the fucking river. Building a new bridge will cease to be an issue only after we've built a new fucking bridge.

You eco-turds can bury your heads in the sand and pretend that none of those problems exist-- please do! Tell Grandpa Wheatgrass to keep churning out "alternative" designs out of macraroni and Popsicle sticks over there at the organic retirement home, because they're hilarious. Keep writing undergrad Urban Studies theses on how the entire west coast could replace semi trucks with handcrafted cargo bikes. Again, hilarious.

Keep the circlejerk alive! If everyone holds hands and sings with enough heart, together we can LEVITATE THE CRC!

Wow Cunty, that is a fascinating rewriting of [recent] history. Because in fact, it seemed as though Light Rail haters from the dirty 'Couv, wielding their power in the WA State house were actually the ones who killed the bridge. Then, despite OR House Speaker Kotek's (D) best efforts, other fiscally attentive folks pointed out how idiotic it would be to build a bridge only on Oregon's dime.
Also, the CRC was only designed for a ~6.0ish earthquake, about what the current green monster is expected to withstand - nowhere near what "the Big One" will likely be.
Now maybe we can think about more affordable options that would actually fix the PROBLEM as opposed to lining the pockets of contractors, consultants, and politicians up and down I5 by building a bunch of new on ramps to get to the gridlock around RoseQuarter faster.

from the CRC's own report:

"1. Is it feasible to retrofit the existing structures? If so, how?

Yes, it is technically feasible to retrofit the existing bridges to the current seismic safety standards. The Panel identified expected vulnerable elements of the bridges and discussed potential retrofit concepts to address these vulnerabilities. Retrofit concepts could include strengthening or replacing significant portions of the existing bridges."

if you ODOT is hellbent on spending money on increasing capacity they should FIRST retrofit the existing bridges and fix the area near the RQ. THEN build a local bridge between Hayden Island and Vancouver (with assistance from WDOT), and maybe one to the Expo Center area.

if the combination of those measures, and the declining use of automobiles in general, don't help reduce the bottleneck then by all means explore spending $1b plus of our taxes. until then, fuck off.

Take a deep breath, Chunty. And have a toll house cookie.

Todd, if we don't build the CRC, where would Chunty find a toll house to get said cookie?

Has no one seen or discussed the common sense alternative to the CRC? As far as I can see it is much cheaper and addresses all the issues the CRC was supposed to fix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPB1jtmHVkk