STOP THE PRESSES! At the Columbia River Crossing project sponsor’s council meeting this morning, Mayor Adams piped up for two good ideas. After the mayor raised environmentalist allies’ ire by proposing and approving the fattest, car-friendliest 12-lane option for the bridge back in February, his wheels turned toward the recognizable “sustainability champion” direction this morning. But pressure behind the bridge — and wariness of high tolls — is rolling forward just as usual.
At the beginning of this morning’s meeting, the group of nine regional government leaders debated how to further study cost-cutting options for the $4.2 billion bridge project. Oregon Department of Transportation director Richard Brandman mentioned reusing portions of the current bridge rather than just throwing it all away (good idea, guys!) when Adams said, “So is everything on the table? Including lane capacity? I’d like to see that put on as a choice on the menu of choices we can be looking at for cost and performance goals.” That opens the door to possibly cutting the number of lanes down from 12 if it saves money or if the environmental impact statement (due Spring 2010) shows it’s a much greener plan.
When we’ve hounded Adams for his 12-lane stance over the past couple months, the mayor has always reiterated that the Council approved a bridge “up to 12 lanes wide.” It’s a relief to see he’s making the committee take that “up to” option seriously.
Second shining moment: the new bridge replacing the I-5 to Vancouver will most likely be two “stacked” bridges. All the designs drawn up until this point seem to have taken for granted that cars will drive across the top of the bridge and transit, bikes and pedestrians will be assigned to the potentially-cave like bottom level. The under-level bike path would be complete with “caging” running along the sides most of the length of the bridge. BUT this morning, Adams asked for the group to look into flipping the proposed design, putting bikes/ped/transit on top and cars on the bottom level. The group was quiet for a moment. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that idea,” said one committee member. “Reversing the stack… will that work?” Well, said Adams, it’s worth looking into at least.
Also of note: the new bridge plans to use electronic tolling. That means the Washington and Oregon governments keep your credit card on file and link it to your license plate so every time you cross the bridge, the toll is automatically deducted. There is an anonymous cash-only option but still, cue Big Brother commuter paranoia freak out.
More on the bridge plans – including some tense words from ODOT that “we WILL cut a ribbon on this project!” below.
At one point during the meeting, Tim Leavitt from C-Tran said he had heard some rumors that Oregon legislators moved to block funding on the project. Matthew Garrett, director of ODOT, replied sternly that, “I can assure you that the governor, legislative leadership and my organization are committed to this project.” Metro Councilor David Bragdon raised the point again, saying, “We’ve got to be honest that there was a lot of debate here in the legislature.” Garrett repeated, “There is a commitment from the governor, the leadership and my agency on moving forward on this project. And one day we will cut a ribbon on this project. Make no mistake about that.“
Whoa, okay, got it, we won’t talk about the dissent in the legislature. Just like we won’t talk about the bridge design. Or missing financing plans for how to actually fund the bridge. In fact, we’re just going to stop talking about the largest transit project in our region’s history until its ribbon cutting. … and even after that, too, just to play it safe since ODOT will have my credit card number.
The first rule of CRC club is that you don’t talk about CRC club.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that idea.”
That right there is kind of stunningly stupid. In this entire process, no one ever brought up the idea of putting the people locked into cars into the cave-like lower level, and the people on, say, wide-open bikes, on the wide-open upper level?
Is high-speed rail even on their table? Seems like it should be.
> good idea, guys!
The stupidity of the commentary on this bridge really boggles the mind. Think about that “idea” for a second – have you even seen the current bridge? (Of course not — it’s out of range of a fixie.) How could that possibly be incorporated into a new bridge with the design that is operative? It would be much more expensive to try to somehow fit the old bridge into the new one, than just to start over.
If we are going to spend $4 billion on a bridge, it better last for a heck of a long time. And that means no 3-lane POS. This region is going to continue to grow — and we will need more capacity in the future.
Or we will need less capacity because, either
A) less people will drive because they want to have less of a negative impact on the world and community
B) the negative impact on the world and community will usher in events that will dramatically reduce the amount of people, and thus the amount of motorists.
OK, but there should probably add an outside lane for convertibles, and an additional inside lade for covered rickshaws.
And perhaps another lane for people who can’t structure their sentences all that well.
One problem I see with cars and trucks in the lower lanes might be getting emergency equipment to the scene of an accident. And there will be accidents. Also, by reading the daily Columbian blogs, there doesn’t seem to be very many people in favor of having light rail into Vancouver.
Vancouver wants light rail, they just don’t want to pay for it.
It’s just that having light rail go to Clark college just doesn’t make sense. If we MUST have light rail, it should initially go to a park and ride out at the Clark County fairgrounds. From the west side and the east side of Portland. The purpose of light rail, as I see it, is to reduce congestion on the freeways and city streets. How is going to Clark College going to do that? Besides, if Oregon could reduce the choke points on I-5, we wouldn’t have nearly the traffic jams that we now have. It seems like this should be the first priority. Maybe instead of light rail, they could run commuter trains, using the existing trackage.
“That means the Washington and Oregon governments keep your credit card on file and link it to your license plate so every time you cross the bridge, the toll is automatically deducted.”
They’ve already tested the infrastructure for this, using the system to send surveys out to everyone who crossed the bridge on two different days.
Yes, and I got one of those in the mail about 6 weeks after they took my picture. How in the hell am I supposed to remember why I was using I-5 that long ago. I use both I-5 & I-205 in the course of my business (escorting wide loads), so I just threw it in the trash. What a waste of time and money.
“escorting wide loads”
I told you Blabby’s mom was fat. (I didn’t know she worked as a hooker.)
I’m still for blockading our existing bridge and forcing the Vantuckians to stay on their side of the river. We have the military might to patrol the river moored downtown right now.
We’ll let them in only if they agree to ride light rail, but I’d prefer they just stayed out.