News Jul 3, 2008 at 4:00 am

Tell City Council to Reject a 12-Lane Freeway Bridge to Vancouver

Comments

1
Hear hear!
2
I've got a better idea. Why don't we just remove the I-5 bridge altogether :-) I haven't met a native Oregonian yet who wouldn't mind slowing down traffic through our state from other states.
3
this article is just too full of unsubstantiated claims. Basically, its seems like the article is an exercise in seeing what happens when a non expert tries to make up the field of transportation engineering from scratch.

Adding more lanes might make it so more people drive, but they might not. I'm sure there are studies that could be cited.
4
I’m so tired of this Ant-Washingtonian attitude. “why don’t they stay in there own state!” For the love of god, I wish I could. Every god dam day I wish I could stay in my state and enjoy an income tax-free life. It’s not bad enough you filthy Oregonians steal 8% of my income for your retarded, crumbling understructure. Now, your are also suggesting that I pay a toll? Fine - whatever. Here is the dirty little secrete – once they start tolling bridges it’s not going to stop. As people drive less, they still need that money. They will find the money – from your income, make no doubt about it.
5
I'm sure the city council have thought of extending the max yellow line to vancouver. Why didn't we go for that? Instead of making that bridge bigger? Didn't anyone learn from LA that making bigger freeway is not going to stop traffic congestion? Instead it creates smog and heightens anger management demands. I moved to Portland from LA for a reason!
6
I'm so sick of people comparing Portland to LA - STOP! Portland is NOT LA (for one thing, we don't have 8 million people in the city proper) - LA is a bit of an anomaly in US cities and has only been a big city for 75 or so years. WE ARE NOT LA. WE ARE NOT SEATTLE. We are Portland with unique needs, part of which is wider roads throughout. Using your insane logic, we shouldn't have ever built a single freeway because it only makes people want to drive more, right? Stupid. Roads are an essential part of our infrastructure, as well as public transit. But public transit is only really useful for a tiny percentage of our population, and will never be able to serve everybody. There will ALWAYS be a need for individual cars, and there will ALWAYS be a massive need for reasonable infrastructure so that goods can be transported around the region so you can buy them in stores. Alot of businesses won't even step foot in Portland because of the logistical nightmare that freight is here. You morons are going to bankrupt the entire city with your attempts to force people not to drive, toll them, tax them to hell and spend all their money on light rail. Good job. Besides the fact that there is NO REAL EVIDENCE that WE are causing global warming!! In fact, more evidence exists that it is going to happen regardless of what we do, like it has many times in the past. These stupid studies and theories the local governments are putting forth have no basis on reality - they're simple guesses and pseudo-intellectualism. Fact is, we need a bigger bridge, and we need it soon. The one we have is WAY under-sized. Hell, the original span of I-5 is built on wooden supports! Drive less when you can, I know we will run out of oil eventually, but taking away our individual mobility is NOT the answer!
7
Hi and thank you for a wonderful article covering the I-5 Bridge debate. I believe you are on to something. Twelve lanes of what, more traffic now that you are putting tolls in the very way of keeping traffic moving in the first place? Goods and commerce will obviously flow, and to that end, I believe we should not slow down the big trucks that weigh tens of thousands of pounds, requiring "F" loads of energy, with stop and go traffic situations.
Seattle is implementing a Variable Speed Technology (VSL) along a section of their downtown I-5 to help manage the flow of traffic. A simple and relatively easy and proven technology to help promote safer and more efficient driving patterns for us, the daily commuter.
Please keep the communication open and try not to get into a political up-roar over 'having' to build or 'having to do' something about this Bridge. Peace.. Glenn Thompson, Grad Student, PSU, Conflict Resolution
8
Canadia:

A good dozen years or so ago, when voters on this side of the river approved what is now the MAX Yellow Line, Clark County voters shot it down. Thus, the truncated MAX line that ends at the Expo Center.
9
@Canadia -

If memory serves, Portland/Trimet did their part to bring the Yellow Line over the river, but Vancouver/Clark County voters put the kibosh on it. They also managed to cut C-Tran's budget by ungodly amounts at the same time.

Clark County has one of the (if not the) most conservative voting records in the state. The idea of raising taxes for any sort of liberalish project (including public transportation and libraries) gets their Depends in a bunch.

And I am a Vancouver resident, for anybody out there thinking I'm just another Portlander bashing his neighbors. There are a lot of good things about living on this side of the river, but the public transportation scene ain't one of 'em.
10
A new bridge makes Portland more livable for me. Thanks for asking. Unfortunately I have a job so I will not be down at city hall at 2pm on a weekday. Good luck to the other who don't understand commerce and transportation.
11
A new bridge makes Portland more livable for me. Thanks for asking. Unfortunately I have a job so I will not be down at city hall at 2pm on a weekday. Good luck to the other who don't understand commerce and transportation.
12
Don't make Oregon pay to subsidize Vancouverites commutes.
13
since you are new to the area, canadia, you don't know that vancouver turned down two votes to have light rail run north twice in the 90s, when the democrats were funding a much bigger chunk of light rail costs. which is their right.

It is real ostrich thinking that if we don't build this bridge, the issue will go away or become cheaper to solve. I am lucky enough to live in Portland and work in the 'Couv, so am witness to the horrendous bottleneck coming into and leaving the city each day. It does deserve addressing, and Portland needs to think past the river.
14
the idea that we should sink all our transportation funds for the next decade into one bloated project that only benefits a small percentage of people is absurd.

This is the biggest issue facing the northwest at this moment. I will make time to tell the city this sucks in person.
15
hah! I can tell you're from washington, "super-sweet" just by your incredibly primitive diction. Let me guess, you cross the river every day to clean the toilets in Gresham's Wallmart? That meth-infested chunk of worthless sprawl you call "Vancouver" as well as "Home" should get with the times. Expand the light rail, quit driving SUV's (i know, i know, if you got rid of your truck where would you put those incredibly witty 'I Heart Wood' stickers), and most importantly find a job in your own damn state. This bridge project will only bring more Vantucky yokels into Oregon to take away our jobs, raise our unemployment and further destroy our roads.
16
Build the damn bridge, put light rail tracks on it, put a bike lane on it.

Hell, it only costs a couple weeks of Iraqi war anyway!

Chump change.
17
Super-Sweet says:
Now, your are also suggesting that I pay a toll? Fine - whatever. Here is the dirty little secrete

Super-sweet here is a perfect example of why we need to listen to the transportation experts in PDX that understand how this works. Super sweet here doesn't even know how to spell secret. She's just the person I want to evaluate the transportation demands of Portland and how we don't want Vantucky to turn into an even more spread out place than it already is. Consider it us saving you from yourselves.
18
I got news for you guys, Portland is part of Oregon, and Oregon is apart of the United States of America.

This bridge isn't about Portland.

Ignore the parochial views of those who think they are better than everybody else.

BUILD THE BRIDGE, with light rail and walkways, and bike lanes.

Make it the best bridge on the left coast.
19
Al M—perhaps we should build a bridge. But perhaps six lanes will suffice, if we're also going to do tolls and transit and if traffic on the bridge has already dropped recently thanks to gas prices. Or perhaps the current bridges, with some seismic retrofitting, will last another 40 years.

No one's advocating that we do nothing at the crossing, or that we rip the bridges down and swim across the river. All I and other critics are saying is that the options on the table are far too limited (do you want a really big bridge, or a really big bridge?); this project began before peak oil, climate change and $4-plus gas were part of everyday life, and now we need options that deal with those realities.
20
Amy-

Population is not going to decrease, its going to increase.

The bridge needs to be replaced.

I see no reason why it can't be built on the same scale as the Golden Gate Bridge.

One month of Iraq war can build us a golden gate type bridge.

It's not about Portland, even though Portlanders are behaving like the world should revolve around them.

In 50 years none of us will be able to recognize Portland as the Portland of today. (those of us that would still be around that is)
21
Pea-brains: we WANT to let more traffic into the metro area. More traffic is more business. More business is a thriving economy. A thriving economy pays for MORE of the dumbass liberal programs you all sigh and die for. Less cars does NOT get you MORE environment. It gets you an economic basket case of a city. Let the traffic grow and flow, I say!
22
canadia - we tried to extend MAX into Vancouver, but the people in Vancouver voted the project down. They're not too keen on mass transit up there.
23
canadia - we tried to extend MAX into Vancouver, but the people up there voted it down. They're not too keen on mass transit up there.
24
A new public opinion poll says it might be time to reverse that 1995 vote (gas was $1.25 then, after all). 62 percent in Clark County are for light rail: http://www.columbian.com/opinion/news/2008/06/06252008_Residents-support-light-rail-history.cfm
25
@Amy

I wonder how much of that change is due not only to shifts in public opinion, but also in population movements from Multnomah County to Clark County:

http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=14869

One of the more interesting bits from that study:


--------------------
In the second half of the 1990’s, for every person moving from Clark to Multnomah two people moved from Multnomah to Clark. Clark County’s popularity results from growth in high tech and other jobs, less expensive housing, more available industrial land, and a reputation for good schools.
-------------------

I have a hunch that more than a few of the Fuck-Vancouver-and-This-Bridge types will end up living over here well before any construction project could be completed. Saving 100k on a house in a district with better funded schools is a pretty strong incentive.
26
my suggestion is that if Clark County wants light rail that they can pay for the bridge. that was the problem originally wasnt it? Portland was willing to pay for half the bridge and not for the Washington side?
I am all for having light rail from Vancouver to Salem, but I dont think Portland need foot the bill for every suburb that decides now is the time. how about we build a bridge right after we pay for our more pressing issues, for instance Portland has about 5k people sleeping outside every night. Portland Public School district says they have 1,550 homeless students alone! if we dont have housing and other equally pressing issues maybe we can get more compassion around other issues like the bridge...

Patrick
27
I'm thinking that if we really want a bridge that matches our ideology, the deck should be suspended from the dreads of all the Hawthorne hippies. But seriously, does it match our environmental sensitivity to let automobiles sit there idling away longer? No amount of eco-babble will stop people from driving up and down I-5. Making it easier to do so isn't ecologically irresponsible, it's just realistic.
28
I'm thinking that if we really want a bridge that matches our ideology, the deck should be suspended from the dreads of all the Hawthorne hippies. But seriously, does it match our environmental sensitivity to let automobiles sit there idling away longer? No amount of eco-babble will stop people from driving up and down I-5. Making it easier to do so isn't ecologically irresponsible, it's just realistic.
29
I was promised flying cars! When am I going to get FLYING CARS!?
30
Can somebody please just fix this pothole?
31
Why not just give Hayden Island to Washington state?

The tax evaders would have no reason to cross, thus reducing a lot of traffic, and it would put the whole bridge in Washington, reducing Portland's role in the decisions.

If traffic reduction is the goal, let's reduce traffic for a few years and see what happens.

GF in Portland
32
Why not just give Hayden Island to Washington state?

The tax evaders would have no reason to cross, thus reducing a lot of traffic, and it would put the whole bridge in Washington, reducing Portland's role in the decision.

If traffic reduction is the goal, let's reduce traffic for a few years and see what happens.

GF in Portland

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