CRC: Adams & Bragdon Make Their Case

Mayor Sam Adams and Metro Council President David Bragdon made the case for a smarter tolling option for the Columbia River Crossing at the bridge’s project sponsors’ council meeting this morning.

ADAMS: Building a bridge to your heart…

Adams questioned the CRC group’s assumption that changing the toll price on the bridge won’t influence its peak demand. He said that his experience on field trip to Stockholm had been different. “Do we have on board the experts in terms of how that will go?” he asked.

One mention of Sweden, however, and Adams had those round the table skeptical of where all this was going. One member recalled crossing a bridge from Sweden to Denmark, and paying a $50 toll.

“To be clear, I’m not proposing a $50 toll,” said Adams. “But I am interested in trying to reverse engineer on some of the operational pieces.”

“My hope for the region’s transportational system is more active operational management,” said Adams. “Tolling is one way but there’s a lot more that we’re not doing. The old-school way of thinking is that it’s just prices and how much concrete there is in the ground. But I’m hoping that this project becomes a beach-head for that more active management.”

Bragon chimed in, saying that in Stockholm, the tolling system had initially been very unpopular with voters, but after trying it for six months, and then removing it for six months, before having a vote, the public overwhelmingly supported the tolls, because they improved traffic.

“Are tolls being used to pay for the project, or are they being used to pay for the project and affect behavior?” asked C-Tran’s Tim Leavitt, from Washington.

“Yes,” said Paula Howard, Washington’s state secretary from the department of transportation there.

“Well, that is a message we need to be careful about delivering on our side of the river,” said Leavitt. “To be candid, because our folks don’t like social engineering.”

“It’s a long way from here to Sweden,” said Vancouver mayor, Royce Pollard. “When we started this discussion, we were talking about lanes, but the idea that we might have to force our citizens out of their cars and onto light rail—I believe that the toll on the bridge needs to be very carefully thought about.”

Adams asked if there was a sense of what the toll might be, and whether there was an allowance going to be made for the difference in sales tax on both sides of the river.

“If you were to just commit to a sales tax on your side of the river, that would make a lot of difference,” said Pollard.

“Are we going to get an income tax, is that what you’re saying?” asked Howard, from Washington.

Bragdon said that “if you put a gun to my head today, I would have to say eight or ten lanes on the bridge.” He said there were risks to building the bridge too big. This was the most unpopular opinion voiced all morning, judging from body language and comments around the table.

Adams, meanwhile, didn’t specify a number of lanes he’d like to see, but did seem very keen on agreeing on tolling before the lane decision is made.

There’s now going to be a meeting in East Portland at the Midland Library, on February 18, at 6:30pm, to get feedback on what tolling the I-205 might mean to people out there. And Portland city council hopes to meet again on February 25 to discuss the bridge lanes.

The project sponsors’ council hopes to reach a decision on lane numbers at next months’ meeting. I’ll believe it when it happens.