Adams: ODOT Drafting a Letter that Gives City More Power Over CRC

Nothing like a call from Commissioner Sam Adams as you’re about to walk out the door.

He clarified Commissioner Randy Leonard’s earlier news that the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) was drafting an amendment to Adams’ Columbia River Crossing resolution, which the council will vote on on Wednesday.

“It won’t be an amendment,” says Adams. “It’s going to be a letter from ODOT to the City of Portland, that will put in writing what they’ve been telling us verbally.”

And what will they be putting in writing? “They are not going to approve a project over our dead body. The goals for the project for we have, the concerns that we have, that they will be addressed in this next phase of the process, and that they wouldn’t move it forward if Portland has significant objections to whatever comes out in the next phase of the process.”

That’s important, because the City of Portland doesn’t have veto power over the CRC project. ODOT, however, does.

“I don’t want any surprises,” says Adams. “I want more than just a handshake.”

The city’s conditions include fulfilling “the city’s goals related to peak oil and climate change,” says Adams. “We need to get a higher percentage of trips onto light rail, which means we want congestion pricing on the toll.” He’d also like to see proceeds from the toll going toward other projects, perhaps to improve transit along the corridor or fix the I-405/I-5 bottleneck (please don’t tell me we’re going to have to debate building more lanes there in five years!).

“These kinds of goals have to be met in the next round of evaluation and study or we’re going to say no,” Adams says. “My recommendation for the council [on Wednesday] is to move from this phase of study to the next phase of study.”

They’d be initially approving “a replacement bridge that has no more than three through travel lanes and includes light rail. We’re not signing off on the number of auxiliary lanes. There needs to be new and updated modeling and evaluations to determine how many auxiliary lanes are needed and what kind of function they provide. We don’t have the facts at hand to determine how many auxiliary lanes we need and we don’t have the facts at hand to determine what kind of variable pricing demand management tolling [is needed to] get more of those trips onto light rail.”

“I want to make it really clear, I’m not voting yes on building the project, I’m voting yes to move it to the next level of evaluation and there’s a lot more work that needs to be done,” he added. “I’m willing to vote no if it doesn’t achieve our goals.”