Where will Oregon eventually come down when it comes to the CRC project to build a new bridge on I-5 between Vancouver and Portland? Not clear. From The Columbian:
A high-level meeting of elected officials did little Monday to reach consensus on how many lanes should be built on a new replacement Interstate 5 bridge.
The Portland City Council and the Metro Council, in a rare joint work session, spent close to two hours in a wide-ranging discussion of the lane issue, bridge tolls and projected effects on greenhouse gas emissions and urban development.
The meeting, however, only underscored the division between Washington and Oregon on a bridge-freeway-transit project that could cost $3.5 billion or more.
An interesting comment from one official:
Metro Council President David Bragdon said officials agree on a number of issues, including the need to replace the bridge and to extend light rail into Vancouver. On the day a light-rail line opens connecting Portland and Vancouver, it would have the highest ridership of any route in the Portland-Vancouver area, he said.
If politics is the art of the possible, hopefully a grand compromise can be worked out between the two states and the two cities. There are hysterical types on both sides of the river, on one side proclaiming a new bridge will inevitably lead to greater sprawl and on the other side proclaiming the end of freedom due to communist choo-choo trains. It’s all so silly, and unsupported by fact.
The bridge project (bridge influence area in planner-speak) is focused on a short stretch of I-5, the main commercial artery on the West Coast. The sub-standard interchanges and bridge present a real safety and efficiency hazard, and it’s long past time a new bridge is planned and constructed.
The detail that concerns me the most is how tolls are presented to the public. If the proceeds are used to pay for construction and maintenance, the public will accept them. If tolls are used to “manage demand,” far fewer people will be happy and there is the risk of an intense public backlash in Clark County. Since the public will have to be asked to approve taxes to run light rail on this side of the river, that’s a big risk to take.
That may not be how some transportation experts see it, as new technology and the hope of influencing congestion through pricing is a somewhat attractive proposition, but it will be seen as punitive and an example of government being out to get the little people. And frankly, since any toll would be new, as passage across the bridge has been free for decades now, there would be a de facto limiting effect anyway. The quick jaunt across the river to purchase merchandise from big box retailers will have to be weighed against the cost of the tolls.
Complicated toll pricing schemes will just muddy the political waters. I sure hope they don’t do it that way.
Given how many people want to live in Vancouver so they can pay Washington income taxes and Oregon sales taxes, I think they should lid the Columbia River and officially make Vancouver a Portland bedroom suburb. It already is, unofficially. This could be done for 3 or 4 trillion dollars, or roughly what Bush’s recreational war in Iraq and bank bailouts cost. You could get real estate developers to bear the cost by letting them build housing developments on top of the lid. We’ll set up a county-owned mortgage company with federal and state economic development and TARP funds to make liar loans to subprime buyers. Of course, the portion on the Oregon side would be worthless, so you’ll have to move the boundary from the middle of the river to the Oregon bank. That way, the entire lid will be in tax-free Washington territory. With dozens of new arterials and hundreds of new side streets connecting Vancouver and Portland, traffic congestion will disappear, and the tens of thousands of new homes that will be built on top of the lid will provide construction jobs for both communities for years to come.
Personally, I have an objection to tolls on interstate highways, especially when it occurs at the borders between states. Too much potential for political mischief there. I can imagine some Oregon politicians, when forced between raising taxes in Oregon or cutting services, saying “Hey, we’ll just make the Vancouver residents pay the difference! Put new toll booths on the Portland side, and charge ’em as they come through! They can’t vote against us, anyway!”
That is, essentially, what we did here through the visitor tax on hotel and car rentals.
Just pay for the dang bridges through the normal tax channels.
@2 This problem will be avoided if my plan to lid the Columbia River is adopted. Vancouver would become an extension of Portland with many connecting arterials and side streets. They couldn’t possibly put up that many toll booths.
My plan has many additional advantages and possibilities. For example, we could extend the billion-dollar-a-mile light rail tunnel from Northgate to the U. District all the way to Vancouver for only $325 billion. Then people working in Seattle could commute from Vancouver and enjoy the same tax advantages of living in Clark County as the current residents. Depopulating King County will bring down the cost of Seattle housing, and by relocating several hundred thousand King County Democrats to Clark County, we’ll be able to elect county commissioners down there who support reasonable land use regulations, for example, homeowners on the lid won’t be allowed to drill holes through the lid to create moorage spaces for their boats.
And this population transfer might increase the Columbian’s circulation enough to allow them to buy the Seattle Times and convert it to a profitable weekly shopper.
Roger,
Would it not be simpler to simply move the state boundary to the northern boundary of Clark County? That would solve several other problems as well…Don Benton, Joe Zarelli and Jim Dunn.
@4 No, because you wouldn’t get any economic stimulus from it. We need some massive construction projects to save the economy. In addition, if we dumped those guys in Oregon, Oregon might declare war against us. We need to find some other way to get rid of them.