One of the persistent questions being asked about the Columbia River Crossing project is whether it won’t exacerbate the jobs-housing imbalance between the two sides of the river.
Staff’s answer is that it won’t, and that this was validated with a modeling run in Metro’s Metroscope tool.
I’ve asked staff for a copy of the Metroscope analysis, but the results are summarized in Appendix C to the 2002 Final Strategic Plan (PDF, 5.8M) of the I-5 Partnership project.
Reading this carefully poses another question: if we get the land use plans wrong, will the CRC make any difference? Here’s the relevant section from the report:
Highway and transit investments in the corridor also carry risks if the development pressure associated with the increased accessibility is not well managed.
- Increased demand for housing in Clark County due to the location of jobs in the center of the region and the faster travel times to jobs in Portland may increase pressure to expand the Clark County urban growth area along the I-5 Corridor to the north. If more new houses are built than jobs in Clark County, I-5 will become overloaded to levels that would exist if no improvements were made. This would be contrary to the regional policy and limit the capacity for freight.
- Industrial areas are at greater risk of being converted to commercial uses at new and improved interchanges with the improved travel times at these locations. As the region’s population has increased, the value of land along the freeway has also increased. This increase in value increases development pressure. Value and corresponding development pressure will increase as accessibility is further improved. If not protected, this development will erode the supply of increasingly scarce industrial land, reduce the opportunities to create family wage jobs close to where people live, and generate more traffic than the system can handle, even with new capacity.
Growth must be managed to ensure that:
- Clark County growth does not result in new freeway capacity being used by commuters, instead of truckers for the movement of goods.
- The expected life span of investments is not shortened.
- Scarce industrial land is not converted to commercial uses.
- Local jurisdictions implement necessary zoning and regulatory changes to attract mixed-use and compact housings around transit stations. The availability of land within the Metro UGB and the Clark County UGAs changes where and how the region will grow. If Metro has a tight UGB, it will increase demand for housing in Clark County, even more than the effect of the added accessibility due to the transit and highway investment. If Clark County expands the UGA, it will also attract growth. UGB/A decisions alone can change traffic demands across the river.
So it seems to me that as local governments are being asked to sign off on the task force DEIS recommendation (which the task force will vote on in February), they should be asking whether the land use plans are in fact in place and being implemented to make sure that the CRC will function as intended by the Partnership.
27 responses to “CRC and Land Use”
Metroscope analysis section you put up on the blog is very important. A perfect Bi-State land use policy implementation is hard to create and enact. Clark County has been a much partner then most Oregonians realize.
There has been an amazing demand for more housing in the Bi-State area and this has exasperated leadership and presented limited scope of options. Market forces and quality education opportunities in Washington have driven much of what has happen more then how the UGB boundaries have or have not been set.
Over all policies that target the creation of more JOB’s in SW Washington are critical. JOB’s must fall into the classification as “Good Family Wage JOB’s” adequate to support a family with children. Anything that get more commuters away from seeking employment in Oregon and living in Washington has to be high on the list of transportation priorities.
This priority to get commuters out the I-5 corridor and working in Washington should have a higher weighted value then building a new CRC replacement Interstate Bridge with 6-lanes of capacity in one direction, flowing into a 2 & 3-lane I-5 corridor.
As we attempt and try to eliminate I-5 corridor “Choke Points” this CRC Project just make the problems even worse by inducing more traffic into this already congested corridor.
Re-read the heading Title for the four bullet points of the section “Growth must be managed to ensure that:”
.”Clack County growth does not result in new freeway capacity being used by commuters, instead of truckers for the movement of goods.”
This balance of transportation priorities where we know that our shared economies depend on freight movement with our freight dependent economies at stake, it points to the development of a new Bi-State multi-mode arterial corridor to the west along the BNSF tracks adn N. Portland Street as a better fit with these lands use goals. A primary facet of this corridor is freight capacity with enhanced freight specific lanes with more heavy rail capabilities getting doubled to increase our competitive position in the world economy.
This gets and/or allows for getting people and freight to the industrial areas in a manner where they do not have to be in the I-5 corridor and the CRC Project does not do that.
A westside arterial gets MAX Light Rail on this replacement BNSF Bridge into Vancouver with connections on Hayden Island at little cost in comparison to the land use implications and property and businesses that would have to be acquired to go directly through very expensive real estate.
I think the critical part of Appendix C in the task force report is the following:
“The analysis of the transportation options in the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership study
assumed that the population and employment allocations in 2020 would be the same in all scenarios.
Further, the analysis that the level and nature of the investment would change the modal choice, the
route and the trip choice, but would not alter the number or locations of employment and households.
History tells us otherwise. Transportation investments do change the location and number of jobs and households.”
I think it is important to realize that all the analysis of the transportation impacts assumes that the number of people living in Clark County and working in Portland will be the same regardless of whether or what kind of investment is made.
This is not a land use planning issue. It is a political issue. Are the elected officials in Clark County going to intervene to prevent more houses from being built in their county? Because that is the natural outcome of expansion of the bridge.
I asked Craig Pridemore that when he was a Clark County Commissioner and his answer was “50% + 1, Ross. I need to get reelected.” That isn’t a criticism of Pridemore. But it ought to be a caution to the notion seemingly popular with some of the urban planners at Metro, that they can fix poor transportation decisions with proper land use planning. Its not going to happen.
There is one other conclusion in Appendix C that is quite interesting:
“If Metro has a tight UGB, it will increase
demand for housing in Clark County, even more than the effect of the added accessibility due to the
transit and highway investment. If Clark County expands the UGA, it will also attract growth. UGB/A decisions alone can change traffic demands across the river.”
Note that last line. So the question is where is the land use alternative in the CRC process?
get rid of the UGB in the Portland area and it will take development pressure off of rural Clark county.
It’s that simple
I don’t understand why a yuppie living in a shoebox at the pearl thinks that he/she knows whats best for a 5 acre lot in Boring anyway. Space envy?
get rid of the UGB in the Portland area and it will take development pressure off of rural Clark county.
It’s that simple
Yep, and put it squarely on prime farm land in Washington County.
Most Oregonians support its land use laws – its one of the things that makes the state a desirable place to live. I think an awful lot of the folks living in Boring prefer to live in rural or semi-rural Oregon. Not in the middle of exurban subdivisions. That yuppie in the Pearl really doesn’t have a lot to lose.
90% of those folks in Boring or “prime” farmland would subdivide in a heart beat if it wasn’t for those yuppies in the pearl.
What makes the farmland so “prime” anyway? If it was worth so much people wouldn’t want to build houses on it.
It is time to tell everyone that the proposed CRC project is just another MT. Hood Freeway project that needs the same death sentence. We do not need a $2-Billion Dollar project to get MAX Light Rail extended into Clark County.
If the CRC Task Force cannot pull their own blinder off and look at other less expensive alternatives that do not replace the I-5 bridges then it must be shut down by the citizenry.
We do not need a $2-Billion Dollar project to get MAX Light Rail extended into Clark County.
It is time to admit that light rail has been an utter failure in Portland.
It removes about 1/3 of one lane of traffic from US26 (same for Banfield) at a cost greater than new freeway lanes. It is projected to do even less for I205.
The building of light rail instead of lane-miles is THE REASON that we now have a bad congestion problem.
Thanks
JK
It removes about 1/3 of one lane of traffic from US26 (same for Banfield) at a cost greater than new freeway lanes.
Based on what I have found on other web sites, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials says that the “derived service volume” of a single freeway lane at peak hour with a “level of service C” is about 1,370 cars/hour. That’s about as many cars as you can realistically get – higher speeds equal fewer cars per hour. Those vehicles typically carry 1.1 to 1.2 people, so at best a single freeway lane carries about 1,650 people per hour at peak times, and that’s if there are no trucks in the lane.
At peak hour (when issues of congestion really matter) in one direction, MAX carries about double that number of people in the peak direction.
Regarding cost, the current Hwy 217 widening comes in at over $30/mil per lane mile. The new I-5 Delta Park widening project, due to its elevated nature, will cost over $60/mil per lane mile.
The most recently completed light rail project was Interstate Max, which cost under $50/mil per mile (double tracked), including nearly a mile of elevated section, and a sidewalk-to-sidewalk reconstruction of Interstate Ave, new street lighting, some utility relocation, plus the cost of light rail vehicles.
The 8.3 mile Green Line project is projected to cost about $67 million per mile (double-tracked) including a complete reconstruction/expansion of 44 blocks of the downtown transit mall (which will add a through-lane for motorists) and also includes the cost of vehicles.
– Bob R.
What makes the farmland so “prime” anyway?
There are is a pretty complete set of criteria for determining what is prime farm land. I am sure you can get it from the Farm Bureau, which has been a big supporter of Oregon’s land use laws.
One of the problems with Oregon adopting sprawl as the model for development, it that it just moves the transportation problems elsewhere.
The key points is that there has never been any real evaluation of the land use element in the CRC process. The transportation models have assumed no differences in land use regardless of investment. And there has been no evaluation of what impact changing land use plans on either side of the river could have on the need for a new bridge.
Land use, like impacts on local street in Portland, has been set aside and then quietly forgotten in the rush to make a decision on the bridge.
I have to point out that Damascus/Boring is NOT where the prime farmland is, that’s why the UGB is expanding in that direction.
The Tualitin watershed is the really good stuff :-)
I have to point out that Damascus/Boring is NOT where the prime farmland is
If I recall, there actually are stretches of prime farmland in the Boring area (as opposed to Damascus). But Boring is not really the alternative to development in Clark County anyway since it has neither employment not good transportation links to employment centers. If you want to reduce traffic across the bridge, the real target for sprawl would need to be in rural Washington County – which is prime farmland.
I don’t think Oregon is going to change its land use laws to reduce congestion on the I5 bridge. But there is plenty that can be done within the current land use laws on both sides of the river that would substantially reduce the number of people commuting across the bridge and free up capacity for freight.
Ross W. said: “But there is plenty that can be with the current land use laws on both sides of the river tht would substantially reduce the number of people commuting across the bridge and free up capacity for freight.”
The problem is that we need a lot more then just improvements in ‘Land Use Laws’ to reduce the number of people commuting across the bridges and in the I-5 corridor. MAX Light Rail might initially reduce the number of people and cars in the I-5 corridor by 1% to 2% and that does not make a dent with our congestion and emissions problems that are killing people and businesses.
I hate to keep harping on it but we need to create real alternatives to what is getting proposed by the CRC Task Force. Their recommendation only makes congestion worse by inducing more traffic into the I-5 corridor with this 6-lane replacement I-5 bridge.
This bottleneck that the CRC recommendation will worse is estimated to result in backups of 5 to 6-miles in lenght that will last for 14-hours per day in the I-5 corridor and how does anyone expect to get any freight through that type of mess.
If we cannot agree on anything else we should agree that we have an opportunity to develop this BNSF and North Portland Street into a arterial multi-mode freight corridor that enables our industrial sector businesses and thousands and thousands of JOB’s to exist.
The congestion and the lack of Freight Mobility problems in I-5 are not going to go away with any proposals currently on the books and we had better prioritize some alternatives in this current TPAC process and in JPAC considerations or this region is going to be screwed.
We cannot wait for a year or two for some transportation planning and political leaders, to wake-up and put real solutions into the current long range regional transportation planning documents that provides for reductions in I-5 corridor traffic levels. This to me, must have a much higher priority then any CRC Project. To many lives depend on this.
The CRC Project makes the problems worse and the people deserve solutions that do not kill people and businesses, let alone our environment.
The bottleneck in the I-5 corridor that I was referring to in my previous posting was in 2030 time frames.
MAX Light Rail might initially reduce the number of people and cars in the I-5 corridor by 1% to 2%
I see no reason at all to think that Max will have any effect at all on the number of people in the corridor. It ought to have the opposite effect. And I am doubtful it will have any impact on the number of vehicles.
There is so much latent demand in the corridor that people who shift to transit because of light rail will quickly be replaced by people who had been discouraged from making the trip because of the congestion. The purpose of transit is to provide opportunities, not reduce congestion.
This bottleneck that the CRC recommendation will worse is estimated to result in backups of 5 to 6-miles in lenght that will last for 14-hours per day in the I-5 corridor and how does anyone expect to get any freight through that type of mess.
The reality is that this assumes people will sit in traffic with backups of 5 to 6 miles. They won’t. Especially if their are attractive alternatives available.
So one alternative that can be made more attractive is to use transit. That includes light rail but a lot of other improvements as well that make transit a realistic alternative for more trips. That includes changes in land use that increase the percentage of new homes built in areas with sufficient density to support high quality transit.
Another alternative is to create a higher percentage of new jobs to new housing in Clark County so that people have more attractive employment options that don’t require using the bridge to get to work. That is a land use solution – at least in part.
Another alternative is to provide more affordable housing on the Oregon side of the river. That is both a land use and public policy solution.
The problem is that we need a lot more then just improvements in ‘Land Use Laws’ to reduce the number of people commuting across the bridges and in the I-5 corridor.
There is nothing wrong with the current land use laws, there are problems with how they are implemented in Clark County. They are actively encouraging housing development in auto dependent communities with little access to employment. Frankly, it is that irresponsible development that is the root cause of the problem.
Som get some of those same houses built in transit oriented areas with good transit access to jobs in Oregon. Shift another chunk across the river to Oregon.
What percentage of the trips have destinations with high quality transit service on the Oregon side of the river? How do those numbers compare to places in the region with heavy transit use? Until you answer those questions, you don’t know whether land use changes, combined with improved transit, can fix the problem.
Paul,
While we may have differing opinions, I do expect that after the I-5 bridge bottleneck is lessened, the discussion of the North Portland Road corridor will occur. The Camas to Troutdale bridge will follow that. Expansion of I-205 (with light rail included) could occur if there is enough ROW. The advantage of the grid street system is its connectivity – alternatives abound. The Columbia River limits us to two alternatives for autos in this area.
My worksite (Kaiser Permanente’s Interstate Campus in North Portland) has 1000 employees. My guess is 1/3 live in north of the Columbia. With our disconnected transit systems, it is extremely difficult to move between work and home except by car. The challenge of staggered shift times that change every day to accomodate patients make carpooling a challenge, but transit very feasible.
I believe the CRC will approve a new bridge (of some sort – will they leave the oldest bridge in place for local traffic?) with light rail. Will the commute over the bridge by car be shortened significantly? Probably not – except that the big reduction in accidents and resulting backups will improve the times. This needs to be modeled in the DEIS. The integration of TriMet and C-Tran is key to the discussion. It should not take 2 to 3 hours to travel from North Portland to Orchards. Will the Banfield to 205 commute be shortened? My bet is it will – and this has to be measured in the DEIS. There are tens of thousands of commuters currently driving 10-20 miles out of their way to avoid the I-5 bridge. Enough rambling….
BTW, please make sure your discussion of the North Portland Road corridor is not labelled as Street, Blvd, or Hwy so that everyone knows what you are referring to.
Thanks!
Brad
Probably not – except that the big reduction in accidents and resulting backups will improve the times. This needs to be modeled in the DEIS.
Brad – you need to be clear that whatever the models results, it assumes peoples choices of where to live and work will not change regardless of what investments are made. If the staff recommendation is accepted, there will be no real choices modeled for the motor vehicle component.
There is no doubt that if you add capacity and assume the same number of trips there will be a reduction in the time it takes to traverse the bridge influence area. You don’t really need to do modeling for that. Unless they model the impact of on the rest of the street grid and on southbound trips originating in North Portland outside the bridge influence area, you can pretty much assume the model will show that the bridge will create a marked improvement in travel times.
Bob R: a full width traffic lane can carry about 2000 vehicles per hour (vph). Depending on location, some can even carry 2200 or even 2400. Capacity really depends on a number of factors – lane width, grade, shoulder width, horizontal/verical curves, etc. For example, each 11-foot lane on the current I-5 bridge for example, only carries about 1700 vph. Each lane on 217 can carry about 1900. For US-26, you are probably at that 2000 mark due to the improvement in the road enginerring standards done during this last set of projects.
Ross: Your comment:
“The reality is that this assumes people will sit in traffic with backups of 5 to 6 miles. They won’t. Especially if their are attractive alternatives available.”
Dude – people DO sit in traffic queues of 5-6 miles. This happens every morning on I-5 SB and every afternoon I-5 NB. And this happens in every other major city in the US and around the world. What planet are you from, dude?
Brad: The new bridge will reduce the average commute length (time). This was/is a key measurement used in the evaluation of all the options studied – supplemental bridge, replacement bridge, ‘do nothing’ option, tolling option, transportation demand management option. The old bridge will never be used for local traffic – no jurisdiction wants to actually own the bridge (why would they?). Like you post, BTW.
Paul E. Your ‘solution’ has so many problems I don’t even know where to begin…Other than to say that it is a worse performing alternative to a supplmental bridge alongside the current bridges – and that option is basically unpalatable for a dozen or more reasons.
Senor Cansado you may have your opinions, I do not know where you are coming in your research, back ground, specific education on transportation planning and land use and time in the trenches leaning the specifics of the I-5 corridor but I have over 10-years in detailed efforts studing the I-5 corridor and its options and opportunities and 14-years commuting in the corridor.
At one time in my past I was appointed to sit as an Alternate on the SW Washington Regional Transportation Council and when I was asked they told me that they were impressed with my overall knowledge of transportation issues.
I have yet to figure out how inviting 20K-40K more motor vehicles onto the streets of Portland is a plus for Portland. Why are we agreeing to see this happen? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Have we forgotten the lesson of the Mt Hood Freeway? Sam? Rex? Brad? help me out.
Senor Cansado es muy Cansado.
Dude – people DO sit in traffic queues of 5-6 miles.
Exactly my point. The amount of congestion won’t change dramatically because it is based entirely on people’s willingness to tolerate it. Assuming attractive alternatives, there is no reason to think people in the future will tolerate dramatically worse congestion than they do today.
The modeling assumes that people will make the same number of trips regardless of what the CRC decides to build. And, as is stated in the land use discussion above, history says that is not true.
The reality is that the number and type of trips people take over the bridge will depend on how attractive it is compared to the alternatives. The decision on investments by the CRC will go a long way toward determining what alternatives are attractive.
Capacity really depends on a number of factors
It does if you use it as a technical term, but then it has a very precise meaning.
Federal Highway Administation capacity description
You will notice they assume speeds of 5 to 7 mph over the posted limit and no speed lower than 40 mph for their “Base Free Flow Speed”. You have a lot of things you need to consider if your goal is to sustain free flow speeds 5 to 7 miles per hour over the speed limit. This technical use of “capacity” of the highway seems to be calculated a little like the capacity of a bucket if you fill it with a firehose. It never really gets full, so you have to adjust for that.
If you are talking about how much traffic can use the bridge in a given period of time, the maximum real “capacity” will be reached at speeds between 25 and 40 mph. Anyone going faster than that is using up more of the road’s real capacity to get the higher speed. So part of this discussion is how fast should people be able to drive across the bridge? If the goal is 65-70 mph, then you will need a lot more real capacity than if you assume 25 to 40 mph during peaks.
I think that there is an elephant in the room that everyone is assiduously ignoring. Over the next 5-15 years, petroleum is going to become so expensive that the number of people commuting long distances in single-occupancy vehicles is going to drop dramatically.
Between our dire need to reduce carbon emissions and the increasingly clear evidence that peak oil is either here or near, these price increases are certain.
The prices increases may be sudden (causing the drop-off in commuting to be somewhat sudden) or the increases may be slower (causing the reduction to be more gradual). But these reductions __will__ happen.
For the same reason, the amount of intercity freight moved by truck will also decline. It’s well within the realm of possibility that the decreases in traffic will actually offset (or even to some extent, head off) the population growth projected for this area.
Pumping $2 billion dollars into building infrastructure for automobiles and trucks when those modes of transportation will inevitably decline with the decline of petroleum supplies is rank foolishness.
We should be investing our transportation dollars in public transit of all types: light rail, trolleys, busways, high-speed intercity passenger rail on dedicated rights-of-way. We should also be double- and triple-tracking freight railways and putting real money into using intermodal technology to replace the “convenience” of door-to-door truck hauling.
Our children and grandchildren will not thank us for putting them even more deeply in debt to build more and bigger freeways for cars that they can’t afford to drive and failing to invest in the public transit they will find vitally necessary.
Senor Cansado,
I see “Mr. Tired” has re-emerged in the Spanish version. Thought you were banned for a week?
If the North Portland Road alternative wasn’t a sensible option it wouldn’t have survived in the discussions as long as it has. From my own experience, when I have posted the question on other forums, there has been sizeable, positive response. Why don’t you explain the “many problems” with that option?
We have never seen a freeway in this area that, with an added mode of transit or an expansion of capacity, has not, within less than a decade, reverted to its previous level of congestion. That was true of the Banfield (w/Gresham MAX), true of the Sunset (w/Westside MAX) and it will be true of I-5 (w/Bridge expansion) as well. I’m sure it’s true everywhere else. It’s “Build it and they will come!” Unless Vancouver and Clark Co. do something really innovative with their planning an improved I-5 will only invite more development in the corridor, because, without other options, that is where the most convenient commercial access will be.
However, another route across the Columbia, and one which serves a rapidly densifying area, is in itself a valid need. Why funnel all of the traffic through two routes? Do you know how many access routes Seattle has? Besides the I-5 route, it has two bridges across Lake Washington, three ferry routes from the Kitsap peninsula, two highways skirting Lake Washington and Hwy. 99 as a major corridor and entry point to the city of Seattle from both north and south. There are several bridges leading into the city of Vancouver, BC.
Even San Francisco, besides it’s two main bridges, (analogous to Portland’s) has other bridges across the bay in it suburbs. So it isn’t reasonable for Portland metro area to have only two bridges connecting us to a similar region.
Are there major obstacles in building a motor vehicle route in a rail road ROW? How is AMTRAK able to use it? Is it merely legally complex or truly downright impossible? This is what we need answered. Complex legal negotiations are cheaper than a boondoggle.
A lot of justifications seem to emerge for a project when careers and egos are at at stake. Consider Donald Trump! I wouldn’t say that the CRC folks are outright liars—but their logic may be considerably twisted! Funny how that happens so often when a personal goal is on the line! I once saw a humorous sign that proposed a sliding price structure for: “1. Answers. 2. Answers requiring thought. and 3. Correct answers.” When billions of dollars are at stake I think we deserve the third category.
Thought you were banned for a week?
I removed the block a couple of days ago.
“over the next 5-15 years, petroleum is going to become so expensive that the number of people commuting long distances in single-occupancy vehicles is going to drop dramatically.”
Alan –
I think this is overestimating the impact of gasoline prices on the costs of commuting. As I remember, gasoline is typically less than 25% of the cost of driving a mile. And people have the option of using more fuel efficient cars to compensate for rising prices. So it is a mistake to see rising gasoline prices as the magic bullet that will save us from the other consequences of over-relying on automobiles.
“If the North Portland Road alternative wasn’t a sensible option it wouldn’t have survived in the discussions as long as it has. ”
The western bypass in Washington county has survived a very long time, that doesn’t make it a sensible option. Obviously the idea of a new road along the railroad right-of-way has appeal to people who want to get truck traffic off the St. John’s bridge and out of their neighborhoods. That would be a good thing, but I think it would also have some very adverse effects in Vancouver neighborhoods and on traffic and development elsewhere in Portland.
Unless Vancouver and Clark Co. do something really innovative with their planning an improved I-5 will only invite more development in the corridor, because, without other options, that is where the most convenient commercial access will be.
While I think that is absolutely true, it would be a mistake to assume that it is primarily commercial access or development in the immediate corridor that is the problem. The fundamental problem is that people measure the distance of trips in time, not miles. If you make a trip faster, they will willingly travel further for the same purpose whether its work or shopping or recreation. So they will travel further and use more road space to achieve the higher speed while doing it. Freeways are designed to increase the demand.
The N. Portland Street/BNSF arterial and bridge would probably connect directly too Mill Plain Extension. This is an excellent connector arterial in Vancouver.
The Port of Vancouver and the City of Vancouver are in the process of engineering a loop starting where Mill Plain and Fourth Plain come together going north that will bypass Fruit Valley Road and connect to an Rail overpass on Fruit Valley just south of 78th Street. This will allow trucks and basic traffic heading out of the Port areas to filter to 78th or 99th and connect to I-5. It may not be perfect but if Mill Plain is congested, trucks coming out of the Port area have a reasonable alternative to bypass the Fourth Plain residential neighborhood.
The best plan that I have seen advanced to solve Vancouver problems is to trench-out western leg of Mill Plain where is has no traffic lights and it connects directly to I-5. For people in Vancouver and Clark County heading south on this new BNSF/N. Portland Street Bridge and alternate multi-mode Bi-State arterial would have so many wonderful connections in Vancouver from; Mill Plain, Fourth Plain, 39th Street, Fruit Valley Road, 78th Street, 99th Street, 134th Street and they would not have to get on I-5 corridor in doing it.
I lived in Hazel Dell/Salmon Creek area for 14-years and when I heard on the radio that we had problems on I-5 often I would skirt around I-5 and get on I-5 right at the bridge. It was not pretty but you will try anything even if it takes longer but you are doing something and tht is better beign at a dead stop on I-5.
This new alternate Bi-State multi-mode arterial bridge would be a life saver to most commuters. At the same time it would put a lot of commuters closer to their places of employment via mass transit or by car because of the Portland/Metro Land Use Plans created these industrial and commercal employment areas like at River Gate and this route would take you right to work without getting on I-5 and how do you beat that.