Once declared dead, the $3 billion Columbia River Crossing may yet be built. Despite the Washington legislature’s decision not to fund its share of the boondoggle project, Oregon’s governor is twisting arms and holding a special session of the state legislature today to gain approval (and $450 million in state funds) for the bridge.
Some of the twisting appears to have been done in the Washington, DC office of the Coast Guard, which granted the bridge a permit despite the fact that it will interfere with navigation. The DC office apparently did an end run around the Coast Guard’s Seattle regional office, which had opposed the permit. Oregon has agreed to pay $90 million in compensation to three shipping companies whose operations will be affected by the bridge.
The Columbia River Crossing is a plan to build a new Interstate-5 bridge across the Columbia. The new bridge would have more and wider lanes than the existing one and would also have room for light rail. Some bridge opponents object to the added road capacity; others object to the light rail. All the opponents agree that a replacement bridge isn’t necessary as the existing bridge is in sound condition.
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Bridge critic Joe Cortright dug up a previously unreleased study by bridge planners finding that tolls would lead 50,000 vehicles per day to shift from the I-5 crossing to I-205, a bridge about 6 miles east of I-5. Not only will this add 36 percent more traffic to the I-205 bridge, the study Cortright uncovered predicts that the number of people paying tolls to cross the I-5 bridge will be less than half of those projected, which puts the bridge’s finances in disrepute.
Moreover, says Cortright, traffic jams on the I-205 bridge, which is a major access road to the Portland Airport, could cause serious problems for air travelers. Cortright argues that the airport is far more important to Portland’s economy than the I-5 crossing.
Fortunately, some people are actively opposing the bridge. Some Washington legislators have urged Oregon lawmakers to kill the bridge. An Oregon legislator who plans to run against Kitzhaber next year has announced he no longer supports the bridge. We’ll know soon whether he can convince enough of his colleagues to finally kill this waste of money.
If Washington seriously wants no part of the bridge, just refuse any building permits on its side of the river. A bridge needs to have two ends.
I think a bigger problem resulting from traffic diverting to I-205 would be traffic impacts on I-84, which connects I-205 to downtown Portland and points west, like Beaverton, a major jobs hub; both destinations of many of the drivers diverting from I-5. I-84 is already seriously congested, as Portland decided to build its first light rail line along the route, which precluded widening the freeway.
I still don’t see this plan happening. It’s bad enough that bridge users, most of whom are Washingtonians, would be subjected to very high tolls (about $2000 a year for regular commuters); but the toll rates would be set by Oregon, not Washington, as previously planned. This means the majority of bridge users would have no power to resist exorbitant toll rates, as they can’t vote out anyone in Oregon. And Oregon has made it pretty clear how much it values fair treatment of Washingtonians, by making out-of-state residents working in Oregon pay full Oregon income tax, in return for which they get nothing.
Interesting too that C-Tran, the local Washington transit agency responsible for paying light rail O&M costs, has jerry-rigged a finance plan, after the public voted down its initial finance plan (a sales tax increase), by using funds such as savings from eliminating bus service into Portland, and a few other things. Even so, they were short $400,000 annually, which the plan identifies as coming from an “undertermined third-party funding source.” Hopefully FTA won’t fall for this scam (but don’t count on it). The board is also giving strong hints it’s going to renege on its policy of putting any light rail funding plan to a public vote.
If Portland can set the toll for people driving in from WA, then what is the problem with funding this bridge and anything else they want?
P.S. to my previous comment. The “Interstate Commerce Clause” of the US Constitution probably has more to do with the wealth of the United States than any other law since. The EU is all about trying to duplicate the Commerce Clause, and the currency problems of the EU are all about how that is hard to do.