The Mercury and Oregonian are both reporting that all five Portland City Council members have signed on to a letter (the Mercury site includes a link to the letter) embracing the replacement bridge for the Columbia River Crossing along with a number of conditions that map pretty closely to the Metro resolution (independent analysis of greenhouse gases, selection of final bridge options to be driven by a more locally-focused oversight committee, etc.).
Of course, City Council won’t actually hold a public hearing on the CRC until July 9th, nor do I believe they have had the benefit of a final recommendation from the Planning Commission on the topic…
Nice of them to make all this clear so we don’t have to guess how Sam Adams will vote tonight at the task force meeting.
0 responses to “Council Drinks CRC Kool-Aid wthout Benefit of Hearing”
And now today’s Oregonian editorial…taking its cue from the BTA’s betrayal on the CRC…is calling it the “Emerald Gate!” pardon me while I go barf. Greenwashing at its worst.
If Portland City Council’s on board, the Metro Council is on board, the freakin’ BTA is on board … is there any chance of stopping this thing?
I wonder if there’s grounds to challenge the adequacy of the DEIS in court for failing to evaluate some pretty obvious and dramatically less expensive alternatives that were put forth during the scoping process.
First off the majority of public hearings held by the City Council have become meaningless because the decisions have already been made with input from the special interests, (89 member) stacked deck citizen committees so on and so forth.
Secondly, the BTA supports the big bridge alternative because once again the bicyclists expect a free ride which rises to the term freeloading pedal pushers.
Thirdly, Singling out motorists only for tolling is socialistic profiling based on choice of vehicle and therefore discriminatory. With the sky rocketing costs of motor fuels, no dictatorial subsidized incentives are needed to promote alternative forms of transport. A real bridge in a reality check world necessitates an equitable cost sharing financing plan. Therefore “if” tolling is implemented for any kind of motor vehicles, then the users of ALL modes of vehicular traffic MUST be required to pay a toll or a user charge. That includes bicyclists paying tolls instead of just providing lip service.
Fourthly, the amount of this toll can not yet be calculated because the CRC has been ambiguous with the taxpayers hiding the specific price tag and costs to provide the bicycle infrastructure and in addition to hiding any official numbers of projected bicycle crossings. The public has the right to know, digest and respond to this information upfront as part of the decision making process. Without this information the cost per bicycle passenger mile can not be calculated which is probably just fine with the BTA and freeloading bicyclists because the costs are probably far more expensive to provide bicycle infrastructure per bicyclist than it is to provide motor vehicle infrastructure per motorist. If the costs do pencil out in that way, then tolls for bicyclists should be higher than for motorists, or the bicycle infrastructure should not be provided at all thereby requiring bicyclists to climb aboard transit and pay a fare to use the crossing.
OK , lets concede the tolls from the 11 bikes that cross each day… we are now up fitty bucks, can we move on, can we all just move on….
Oregon counties short $250 Million! Gasp!
Let’s spend $4.2 Billion on a bridge we don’t even need. Hello. Long live socialism!
PS re freight…I just watched a Western Star heavy duty truck being loaded on a trailer for transport by truck to Longview via I-5. From there it goes by ship to SE Asia. T-2 in Portland just across the river sees about one ship per month.
Coals to Newcastle?
Why does this surprise anybody?
billb just proved a good point: 11 bikes a day does not justify spending any tax payer dollars at all to subsidize them let alone spending millions for unecessary bicycle infrastructure to cross the Columbia.
Let’s spend $4.2 Billion on a bridge we don’t even need. Hello. Long live socialism!
PS re freight…I just watched a Western Star heavy duty truck being loaded on a trailer for transport by truck to Longview via I-5. From there it goes by ship to SE Asia. T-2 in Portland just across the river sees about one ship per month.
And on that same line of thought, anyone living in Portland should be BANNED from owning a Subaru. Subaru sends their ships to the Port of Vancouver, USA for offloading; while Honda, Toyota and Hyundai/Kia use the Port of Portland; so any Subaru must cross the river to a dealership in Portland.
Likewise, any business in Portland should exclusively buy Freightliner trucks (including Western Star) (since they can be made in Portland) as opposed to Peterbilt or Kenworth trucks (which are manufactured in Tacoma).
As for the usability of Terminal 2…that dock has been quiet for years. There’s a reason Terminal 1 is being redeveloped as townhomes and I expect Terminal 2 to follow within a few years. Maybe there needs to be pressure on the Port of Portland to grow the use of that terminal to better compete with Vancouver, Kalama, Longview, and Astoria? (Or maybe the condition of I-5 is what leads shippers to choose those other ports, just as they choose the Ports of Tacoma and Seattle far more often than the Port of Portland???)
I have a feeling similar, idiotic proposals are being hatched all across the country. For example the Bay Area is installing a multi-billion dollar supplement to the Oakland-Bay Bridge. One small section falls down (almost two decades ago) and they launch into a panic. 15 people get killed in the I-35 bridge disaster in Miineapolis and it sets off an uproar. Nobobdy talks about the 200 deaths EVERY YEAR in US infrastructure construction projects.
So dig deeper in your pockets, US taxpayers. The global masters need to settle 100 million more people here in the USA in the next quarter century and we need to get some public works employment ready for them. And once that is done we will need a new round of “infrastructure improvement” to accomodate the new population which will have strained our existing facilities. This is all necessary, of course, because the US happens to be the major source of evil in the universe, right up there with Darth Vader and Borgs,….. all the ‘experts’ tell me so
Do all those Subarus get to Porland dealers via rail? or truck?
Most auto imports leave the docks on rail cars.
Actually, what we need is a “Lower Columbia River Port Authority” to increase efficiency to better compete with other West Coast ports.
My point was “where is the problem on I-5?”…its fine over 90% of the time. Congestion is in the peak hours…gosh, I’m shocked…and hardly merits over $4 Billion to “fix” it.
Actually, what we need is a “Lower Columbia River Port Authority” to increase efficiency to better compete with other West Coast ports.
This is absolutely true. Similar to the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, we need a bi-state port authority to coordinate port activity in the lower Columbia River and eliminate competition between these ports… we should be competing with Puget Sound, Long Beach, and San Francisco, not Kalama, Longview, and Vancouver.
its fine over 90% of the time. Congestion is in the peak hours…gosh, I’m shocked…and hardly merits over $4 Billion to “fix” it
Yeah, but the lanes on the bridge are kinda narrow and there are no shoulders. Plus, the bike path is way skinny. If that’s not worth a $4 billion fix, what is?
Do all those Subarus get to Porland dealers via rail? or truck?
Most auto imports leave the docks on rail cars.
And how many Portland area Subaru dealerships take deliveries of new cars by the traincar? Heck, how many Portland car dealerships have railroad access?
Exactly ONE (only because the dealership was built at the former location of a GM Parts Warehouse which is no longer in operation), and they don’t receive anything by rail. And I can tell you that the dealership is not a Subaru dealership (although the same company owns a Subaru dealership located several miles to the east.)
its fine over 90% of the time. Congestion is in the peak hours…gosh, I’m shocked…and hardly merits over $4 Billion to “fix” it.
And this same exact argument against the CRC can also be used against any light rail and Streetcar project as well.
McLoughlin Boulevard is rarely congested, therefore there is no merit to a $1B+ light rail line to serve Milwaukie. I-84/I-205 is generally uncongested outside of peak commute hours so why are we building the Green Line? The Streetcar…well…why since most of its benefits are not transportation related yet it uses transportation dollars to build and operate?
Maybe Portland ought to just stop investing in transportation (of all forms). That’ll convince people to stop moving to Portland and we can solve many problems – housing prices will start to drop, fewer people means more livability and less carbon emissions through less transportation and less electric usage, so on and so forth.
My Subaru comment was a bit dumb…I admit. Its unlikely they move by rail car just up the street, so to speak. But most autos leave the local docks on rail car to more distant destinations.
re which transportation investments to make. It depends what kind of city you want. Freeways…as we have learned are built at the expense of city neighborhoods for the benefit of outlying areas. Doubling the motor vehicle capacity of the I-5 bridge will continue this assault on city neighborhoods.
High capacity transit can help transform city neighborhoods, attract private investment, etc. MAX is helping N. Portland recover from the original I-5 assault in the 1960’s. Streetcar’s impact in close in west Portland is even more dramatic.
In addition, it makes sense to build complete transportation networks. For some years now Portland/Vancovuer has had a complete freeway network (except for the Lake Oswego expressway from Milwaukie to Kruse Woods), but still lacks a complete HCT network, not to mention a trails network. It’s wise to invest in what we lack and thereby give residents the greatest range of travel options…drive, ride transit, bike, walk, whatever.
Lenny Anderson wrote: MAX is helping N. Portland recover from the original I-5 assault in the 1960’s. Streetcar’s impact in close in west Portland is even more dramatic.
Is it the investment in light rail (that, by the way, is coming at the expense of other areas’ transit services), or is it the massive package of tax incentives that is only offered in that area by coincidence to light rail?
There are numerous other neighborhoods in Portland that are flourishing without light rail, and without tax incentives. There are other neighborhoods that are relatively close to freeways that have not been “assaulted” by the freeway, either.
Meanwhile, the East Burnside and Rockwood neighborhoods’ “success” is rather questionable, despite the addition of light rail to it. And many parcels of land along the MAX line to this day remain undeveloped, including near the Convention Center (undeveloped for 20+ years) and further west for 11 years.
The I-5 CRC project is akin to the MAX line, being forced onto single-track between the Rose Quarter and Morrison/Yamhill. Should we consider building the new Willamette River Bridge for Milwaukie MAX as single-track (after all it will save some money) but at the risk of efficient movement, or should we build a “complete transportation network” which includes eliminating bottlenecks, including on the freeway system which is very much a part of Portland’s transportation network – especially considering that the Interstate Bridge by itself carries far greater traffic than the entire MAX system put together on a daily basis?
“Freeways…as we have learned are built at the expense of city neighborhoods”
With subsidized TriMet fares covering only 21 percent of operating expenses: building more light rail and streetcar lines…as we have learned sucks up local taxpayer dollars many times faster than building roadways funded by the gas tax paying users.
The facts remain, even with the big new bridge proposal, the least expensive cost per passenger mile is the highway portion. One estimate of the cost per passenger for the Max portion of the crossing is $9.00 per passenger mile while which is in between the highway portion and the cost per bicycle rider mile undoubtedly which remains the most costly. The higher costs per passenger/rider mile for transit and bicyclists is rational justification to add a transit surcharge to fares to pay for the transit infrastructure and to toll bicyclists for the bicycle infrastructure on the CRC..
Lenny Anderson wrote: MAX is helping N. Portland recover from the original I-5 assault in the 1960’s.
No it isn’t.
MAX did nothing. Just as it did NOT along Eastside MAX for the past 20 years.
It’s only the taxpayer’s money that follows which struggles to spur what rail did not.
If you haven’t noticed this you conveniently haven’t been paying attention.
And as usual multiple failures and defaults usher long the mixed use, subsidized TOD movement without any recognition there is a problem.
Round we go!
We could easily compare two North Portland renewal projects – Interstate, and M.L.K.
Both are seeing the same type of dense projects.
Both are seeing new retail.
Both are seeing new housing.
Both are heavily subsidized with tax credits and abatements.
Both took a former state highway (Highways 99W and 99E) and turned them into city streets.
MLK got roadway beautification.
Interstate got light rail.
Can anyone tell me that one is a success and the other is a failure? To me they both are pretty darn similar to each other, showing that MAX didn’t really do anything on Interstate, that wasn’t done on MLK.
“Can anyone tell me that one is a success and the other is a failure?”
Well one thing is for sure. Success is declared soon after plan approval and millions are spent.
SoWa was declared a success well over two years ago.
And of course Lenny’s chorus of “OHSU is Portland’s largest employer” justifies any outcome.