Updated: 3/6/09
Original Post: 3/5/09
Circle tomorrow’s date. It may go down as the day Portland significantly tarnished its green cred.
The Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council will almost certainly vote to approve a 12-lane footprint for the bridge, while expressing conceptual agreement for a bi-state governance structure that will manage performance of the bridge.
Whether this future bi-state entity could ever agree on conditions that would make the bridge green is of course something we are expected to take as a matter of faith.
I’m afraid I’m an apostate.
If you want to watch history in the making:
Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council meets March 6
VANCOUVER – The Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council is expected to make a recommendation on the number of add/drop (auxiliary) lanes on Interstate 5 in the CRC project area when it meets Friday, March 6.
The governors of Oregon and Washington charged the Project Sponsors Council with advising the project on completion of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, project design, project timeline, sustainable construction methods, consistency with greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and the financial plan. The council is composed of representatives from the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Oregon Department of Transportation, cities of Portland and Vancouver, Metro, Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, TriMet, and C-TRAN, as well as two citizens who serve as co-chairs for the group.
In July 2008, project partners selected a locally preferred alternative that includes three through lanes and up to three add/drop lanes in each direction on I-5 between SR 500 and Marine Drive. Add/drop lanes are being considered at various locations in the project area, including the bridge, to connect interchanges and allow for safer highway movements.
The meeting will be held 10 a.m. – noon at the WSDOT SW Region building, 11018 NE 51st Circle, Vancouver, WA 98662. It is open to the public. Meeting materials are available online: Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council meets March 6 VANCOUVER – The Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council is expected to make a recommendation on the number of add/drop (auxiliary) lanes on Interstate 5 in the CRC project area when it meets Friday, March 6. The governors of Oregon and Washington charged the Project Sponsors Council with advising the project on completion of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, project design, project timeline, sustainable construction methods, consistency with greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and the financial plan. The council is composed of representatives from the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Oregon Department of Transportation, cities of Portland and Vancouver, Metro, Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, TriMet, and C-TRAN, as well as two citizens who serve as co-chairs for the group. In July 2008, project partners selected a locally preferred alternative that includes three through lanes and up to three add/drop lanes in each direction on I-5 between SR 500 and Marine Drive. Add/drop lanes are being considered at various locations in the project area, including the bridge, to connect interchanges and allow for safer highway movements. The meeting will be held 10 a.m. – noon at the WSDOT SW Region building, 11018 NE 51st Circle, Vancouver, WA 98662. It is open to the public. Meeting materials are available online: http://www.columbiarivercrossing.org/ProjectPartners/ProjectSponsorsCouncil.aspx.
35 responses to “Mark Your Calendars”
There is an Exhibit of Artworks illustrating a
Green Park-Roofed CRC Bridge at the NW Lucky Lab
Public House in nw Portland on nw Quimby above 19th. The Park-Roof will absorb CO2 – 24 – 7.
The park plantlife will capture all rain-driven pollution runoff [saving a fortune in treatment facility volume]. The gracefully arching park will connect Oregon and Washington , and act as a tourist attracting Green Gateway to the NW.
Now that’s Green !
There is nothing green about spam, billb.
We need to marry Jim Howell’s idea for a Hayden Island to Vancouver Bridge for LRT, local traffic and bike/ped to the proposed design for the Milwaukie LRT bridge across the Willamette. Now that would be something to be proud of. Meanwhile, get ready for years of “greenwashing” on this; increasing from 6 to 12 lanes across the Columbia will not be kind to Portland’s green reputation.
If they are not planning on allowing runaway growth in the I-5 area in Vancouver why do we need a twelve lane bridge?
If there is a twelve lane bridge that attracts more drivers won’t the four lane inner city I-5 freeway soon be way overcrowded?
I fail to see the logic in this proposal at all. It is simply more pork barrel politics. Why tear down a perfectly functional structure? Put an additional interstate bridge where we really need it.
I think I understand the reasons for opposition to a 12-lane footprint, but in my mind the arguments seem too chronologically short-sighted. The river is a huge landscape barrier between two growing metropolitan regions. If the region grows over the next hundred years or so, more people will want to be crossing by some means or another. In my mind we should take advantage of the project to look ahead a couple of centuries, because we don’t know when the funding will be available again to upgrade that infrastructure. We’ve got other 100-year old bridges in Portland that no one is talking about replacing yet.
How do we know that in 50 years we won’t be using six of the lanes to handle some kind of solar-powered, 50 mph bicycle traffic, bus rapid transit, or even some kind of huge pneumatic package transport system?
In the meantime, does the fact that 12 lanes exist dictate the perpetual, all-day use of all of them for auto and truck traffic?
The Burnside bridge is wide because it was built to accommodate streetcars running on it. Who knows what will be running on the CRC in 100 years, or even 500 years?
Connie –
The CRC project freeway-portion will very likely be a couple of separate structures… in the case of the 12-lane proposal, there will be two six-lane structures. We could just as easily build two four-lane structures now, and if we really need to in 25-50 years, build a parallel structure with more lanes, and so on…
However, the main problem with a “big CRC” is that it doesn’t address the problem of distributed demand.
Imagine for a moment that there were only the Fremont and Marquam bridges over the Willamette, and no other bridges from Sellwood to St. Johns. What would traffic between the east and west sides of Portland look like? Everything would be crammed onto the Marquam and Fremont, and the approaches, interchanges, and local streets near those bridges would be in gridlock.
Under such a situation, people might instinctively cry out for a doubling of width of the Marquam and Fremont bridges, but the real answer is to distribute demand with a mix of local and regional crossings — this is exactly what we have in Portland today, and it works quite well.
Why should the important connections between Clark Co. and the rest of the Portland Metro area be crammed into just two increasingly-massive freeway crossings?
Get the local traffic onto local bridges and save the freeways for regional and long-distance traffic.
Well said Bob. Actual traffic counts are down for the last few years. Maybe we will only need four lanes in 20 years. Remember we have 14 now.
Let’s just remame I-205 I-5 and remove I-5 from the hearts of both Vancouver and Portland altogether, converting them into boulevards and the I-5 bridges into arterial bridges with MAX.
Cesar Chavez Boulevard from I-84 in Portland to 99th in Vancouver. I love it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090112201212.htm
What Bob R. is saying is very evident to how many traffic engineers and municipalities plan their roads. They decrease accessibility of automobiles on local streets and saturate a few arterial roads for all automobile traffic of an area.
What’s left are huge arterial roads cutting through communities and neighborhoods that no one wants to live by (or walk across) and terrible traffic during rush hours.
I’m just curious where a new crossing could be put, especially to avoid eminent domain (which I imagine the CRC will need to use for the 300 businesses/homes to be effected)?
Lenny – It’s probably better not to link the CRC controversy with the street naming controversy. :-)
WS –
That’s an interesting article on using rats to study urban design models. How long do you think it will be before someone twists it to say that grid systems are bad for public health because rats get around better? :-)
Bob said; “the main problem with a “big CRC” is that it doesn’t address the problem of distributed demand.”
Actually the main problem is funding the project together with distributing the costs for the project to the users of ALL modes of transport, including bicyclists that want an excessively wide world class bicycle path on the crossing (the cost yet to be made public), and transit advocates that want world class transit service. Moreover, both groups want somebody else to pay it, and targeting motorists as the primary funding source. Even though much of the clean technology and fuel sources that will likely power the cars of the future has not even been developed yet, these groups reject the 12-lane bridge option thereby not wanting to give motorists any roadway congestion relief from the money they want to collect for themselves.
Moreover, transportation dollars could have been saved by building just one six lane highway bridge, three in each direction, for through I-5 traffic only, and then using the existing bridges for local and interchange traffic, Max and transit busses, and also widening the sidewalks (like on the Hawthorne Bridge) for pedestrians and bikes. However, Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder (an avid bicyclist) axed that concept when he led the middle ground subcommittee (without open public comment) to the only (self destructive) proposal to be considered that would have reused the existing bridges for northbound I-5 traffic.
As for the 12-lane bridge itself: Approximately 70 percent of the traffic using the I-5 Columbia River Crossing, including trucks, either gets on or off I-5 in the bridge impact area between SR 500 to the North and Columbia Boulevard to the South, or Both. The 12 lanes are needed not only to create a less congested and safer roadway with 20 percent less projected crashes than a 10-lane bridge, 50 percent less than an 8-lane bridge, but also so the bridge can be designed to perform as both an Interstate highway bridge, and as a local bridge. The uttermost estimate of the traffic using the CRC and going to/from the Central Business District/downtown Portland (where Max goes) is 20 percent, and even number that seems high.
Given all the facts and eliminating the eco charged emotions, opting for a 12-lane bridge is the only realistic option currently on the table that can address the future needs of the region over the long term. Approval tomorrow will mean there is at least one bright light at the end of an increasingly congested tunnel, and about the only shining star one can put on their calendar. On the other hand, to keep the tarnish off that star, any tolling that is likely to collected still needs to be broadened to include the users of all modes of transport on the crossing, and not just the roadway users.
“opting for a 12-lane bridge is the only realistic option currently on the table”
That’s just the problem, Terry… the wrong set of options is on the table. Lower-cost, more broad-based and distributed solutions were not studied.
Terry Parker:“Actually the main problem is funding the project together with distributing the costs for the project to the users of ALL modes of transport, including bicyclists that want an excessively wide world class bicycle path on the crossing (the cost yet to be made public), and transit advocates that want world class transit service. Moreover, both groups want somebody else to pay it, and targeting motorists as the primary funding source.”
ws: You’ve made these arguments time and again, but are in denial that automobiles pay their actual cost as well as their external cost(s).
You can’t expect bikes to pay their way when cars are getting huge handouts as well.
Terry Parker:“Even though much of the clean technology and fuel sources that will likely power the cars of the future has not even been developed yet, these groups reject the 12-lane bridge option thereby not wanting to give motorists any roadway congestion relief from the money they want to collect for themselves.”
ws: There’s nothing green or environment about riding a “green car” around a new low-density, auto-dependent subdivision that leveled native habitat and ecosystems in the process.
I’m all for alternative energy, but anything that increases auto-dependence could hardly be considered “environmentally sensitive” when you analyze the whole system.
ws wrote: around a new low-density, auto-dependent subdivision that leveled native habitat and ecosystems in the process.
Two words.
Guild’s Lake.
anything that increases auto-dependence
How does this bridge increase auto dependence? I don’t believe the bridge makes anything MORE dependent on the automobile, it simply makes the use of an automobile easier, but not more dependent.
If anything, Metro’s and TriMet’s decision to allocate virtually ZERO percent of the stimulus funds to regional bus improvements, and give it all towards light rail improvements, coupled with an aging, increasingly unreliable, packed bus fleet, is making our region more “auto-dependent”. The fact that TriMet is willing to turn willing transit riders away in our region for a few switch heaters, repainted MAX platforms, and transit tracker signs at I-205 MAX stops speaks volumes over our region’s “green creed”.
Notwithstanding, of course, that 50% of our power is from coal and natural gas sources; while our friends up in Seattle are 95% hydroelectric.
This bridge changes NOTHING. Portland is loud on talk, but very short on action. We have a dirty energy supply (and are increasing our energy use daily, not decreasing it); our transportation system is not “green” despite the use of Priuses and other hybrid cars that only carry one person per vehicle (the driver); we continue to sprawl across farmland under the name of “transit-oriented development” and are now working to destroy Hayden Island (with or without the bridge). We have a huge pollution vacuum called Portland International Airport (but, at least it’s “green” and has a MAX line.)
I’m just curious where a new crossing could be put, especially to avoid eminent domain (which I imagine the CRC will need to use for the 300 businesses/homes to be effected)?
Easy answer is the BNSF rail corridor from Mill Plain to Portland Rd. With very, very little impact on structures (although it would impact some private land) that could be built. Built over the existing railroad tracks, it could connect to Fourth Plain also, and allow direct Port-to-Port access.
Between I-5 and I-205 another by connecting (across the tip of Jantzen Beach) to Columbia Shores Blvd. The railroad berm would have to be rebuilt to widen the underpass, and it would take the parking lot between Beaches and McMenamins, but it’s possible. It could connect to Jantzen Beach at Tomahawk Dr, and connect by moving a dock or two to Marine Dr.
Boats are mobile, so it’s still not really taking a structure. Not a building anyway. The biggest obstacle I could see would be building a lift bridge low enough it doesn’t impede PDX operations.
33rd from Marine Dr to Columbia Way would add mobility, and with another interchange to SR-14 regional access. Or SE 192nd (Vancouver) to NE 181st (PDX). The plus is that through traffic would be unlike to use them, but they could shorten trips more significantly for those close to the impact areas.
That and if I-5 were to be hit by a barge, or damaged in an earthquake, or have a major catastrophe in any other form, we’d have more than I-205 as a backup.
The BNSF bridge would be nice to replace for other reasons as well, and I personally feel should be a higher priority for the existing issues for river navigation and train traffic. Adding MAX and traffic lanes would probably be cheaper to do all at once anyway, and could postpone the need for the CRC by a bit. (As well as make it cheaper, by not requiring MAX to be built with it.) A lift bridge would be perfectly fine for this, likely reducing costs farther. This probably could come in at $500m to $1b, depending on the non-bridge portions. (Disclaimer, I’m guessing based on similar projects I’ve been able to find.)
I actually think the CRC is the wrong option–we should be spending the money to turn I-205 into a beltway to allow direct access from Washington County to Vancouver. It will also allow motorists using I-5 south of I-205 three different routes to get up to Vancouver and Washington state–existing I-5 and I-205, and the new western loop of I-205.
It will reduce vehicle mileage on I-5 over the Interstate Bridge, without question. It allows for further specialization of routes.
I don’t think turning freeways into surface streets is a desirable choice, either. You’ll end up with a world-class mess like Seattle.
I actually think the CRC is the wrong option–we should be spending the money to turn I-205 into a beltway to allow direct access from Washington County to Vancouver.
That sounds like a bad idea. Getting around Vancouver/Portland/Hillsboro/back to I-5 south of Tualatin would be so far out of the way nobody would take it, except those east of Hillsboro, North of Vancouver, and/or south of Tualatin.
The part from Tualatin to Hillsboro might not be that useless, but from Hillsboro to where I-5/I-205 come together in Washington seems fairly excessive. I’m sure there’s traffic between US-30 and Vancouver, but it seems a surface route along the Amtrak route from US-30 to Vancouver would be a sufficient area to add a road deck over, with limited intersections, and move a good amount of traffic without a full west side I-205.
The tunneling/bridging costs would take the project higher than anything the US has built now. An Interstate-grade freeway has requirements that would likely push the costs over that of the Big Dig or the CRC.
You can thank Beau Breadlove for the 12 lane bridge. We need to admit that he is no longer effective and press for change.
Dave, of course, at least in the interim, the new beltway could be constructed as a semi-limited access expressway over the West Hills. That’s the part that will get the least traffic as it is, more than likely. It could be done in phases.
I-5 is only congested 10% of the time, in the peaks Monday thru Friday, by single occupancy vehicles, and there is plenty of capacity in those passenger seats. Just subsidize carpools!
Vehicle trips across the River are flat or down; T-6 just lost K-Line so those containers will go by rail to Tacoma. We need a new rail bridge, not a new road bridge, though maybe we could put a couple of lanes on it.
Lenny Anderson Says: I-5 is only congested 10% of the time, in the peaks Monday thru Friday, by single occupancy vehicles, and there is plenty of capacity in those passenger seats. Just subsidize carpools!
Vehicle trips across the River are flat or down; T-6 just lost K-Line so those containers will go by rail to Tacoma. We need a new rail bridge, not a new road bridge, though maybe we could put a couple of lanes on it.
I liked the suggestion someone made about a reversible lane. Seattle has been doing that with their express lanes for decades and with traffic patterns like those between Portland and Vancouver where there are very clear directions of congestion, it should work perfectly.
Lenny Anderson wrote: T-6 just lost K-Line so those containers will go by rail to Tacoma. We need a new rail bridge, not a new road bridge
This is absolutely ridiculous. No railroad, no shipper…no one is going to take the time, energy, and effort to load up a container in Seattle just to unload it in Portland. It doesn’t happen, it won’t happen. Short-haul freight by rail just does not work except under certain very limited circumstances – generally requiring bulk commodities with railcars that can be loaded and unloaded very quickly and with minimal effort. (Gravel, coal, grain…)
Containers and trailers do not fail under that category, a COFC/TOFC train can take the good portion of a day to load…and another portion of a day to unload.
In fact, just looking at BNSF’s website the only intermodal trains are to St. Paul or Chicago (Seattle/Tacoma offers a few more destinations, like St. Louis, Kansas City, and Omaha). UP offers Los Angeles, St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, and Chicago.
ws said: “You’ve made these arguments time and again, but are in denial that automobiles pay their actual cost as well as their external cost(s).”
Motorists pay far more of the costs for the infrastructure they use than either bicycles or transit passengers. If they didn’t, gas tax dollars could not be siphoned off and poached to pay for bicycle infrastructure, sidewalks, etc – and the proposed socially engineered tolling on the Columbia River Crossing could not be siphoned off and poached to pay for the bicycle infrastructure on of the crossing in addition to possibly subsidizing Max. Additionally, driving creates jobs! One in ten jobs are tied to the auto industry, most in the private sector. This is far more jobs than the bicycle industry can ever dream of creating, and far more private sector jobs than can be created by taxpayer subsidized public transit. The true cost of a transit ride in Portland is closer to $10.00 than it is the approximate $2.00 fare, more in the actual costs of building the transit portion of the CRC were added in. Moreover, it is the bicyclists that are truly in denial because they are the ones whom continually freeload off the rest of society paying zero, nada, nothing directly for the infrastructure they use and expect someone else to pay for. There is a fiscal cost to providing bicycle infrastructure, including on the CRC, and it ought to be the bicyclists that are paying those costs.
Ws also said: “There’s nothing green or environment about riding a “green car” around a new low-density, auto-dependent subdivision that leveled native habitat and ecosystems in the process.”
It is far more greener and a better environment to live and grow up in the suburbs including Clark County, than some of the urban heat island core development. Iin the summertime, the density of urban heat islands can be as much as ten degrees hotter than in the suburbs where the structures are farther apart, and there are more green trees, more grassy green yards, more open spaces with green vegetation, etc. Moreover, most people would prefer not to live like sardines cooped up in a high density tenement cans Just look at The Round in Beaverton. It is not working even after millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to bail out the project over and over again. Furthermore, modern housing like much of the infill being built without yards in the Portland-Metro area (high end or not), becomes more like transitional housing turning over to new owners in the market place many more times than free standing houses with yards. If more of the new housing on the Oregon side of the Columbia was being constructed as free standing homes with big yards, and the taxes were considerably less, people and families would not be fleeing to Clark County. The growth management mindset of Portland and Metro officials have only themselves to blame for Oregon workers moving to the North side of the Columbia – and therefore the need for the big bridge.
Lenny Anderson wrote: I-5 is only congested 10% of the time, in the peaks Monday thru Friday, by single occupancy vehicles, and there is plenty of capacity in those passenger seats. Just subsidize carpools!
It should be noted that Portland has one of the worst carpool/vanpool programs of any major metropolitan area.
In fact, Metro had to take the program over from TriMet.
In comparison, King County Metro (the folks up in Seattle) own a fleet of 700 minivans as part of the nation’s largest vanpool service:
http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/van-car/vanpool.html
And that’s just one county in the entire Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metropolitan area.
On top of their award-winning bus system, trolleybus system, ferry and water taxi system, Monorail, commuter rail system, Streetcar (both the Waterfront Streetcar and the S.L.U.T.), and their soon-to-open light rail system.
Much of it powered by clean, renewable, non-polluting, 95% hydroelectric power. And wildly supported by the public through affirmative votes at the ballot box, something Portland hasn’t done in years.
Erik,
Union Pacific has been running a daily Seattle – Portland (I-SEBA/BASE) train for over 20-30 years in partnership with Northwest Container. The train is only 20-50 cars long and mostly single stacked.
If NWC can do a short haul daily train, there is no reason why K-Line can’t do the same. Since K-Line is moving out of Portland, that would just increase Tacoma’s K-Line terminal output.
And also, we no longer have the Waterfront Streetcar. It’s been out of service thanks to a park for several years now. It is now a empty bus that runs every 30 minutes and barely sees 35,000 riders a year vs. its prior 200,000+ riders.
Terry Parker:Motorists pay far more of the costs for the infrastructure they use than either bicycles or transit passengers. If they didn’t, gas tax dollars could not be siphoned off and poached to pay for bicycle infrastructure, sidewalks, etc.
You’re overestimating how much automobiles actually pay by not accounting externalities. Account for more externalities, and cars are not paying their way as much as you think.
Pedestrians cannot be expected to fund sidewalks. You can disagree with overly wide sidewalks, that’s fine. But pedestrians should not need to pay to feel safe on a street made dangerous to them by cars.
Terry Parker:“It is far more greener and a better environment to live and grow up in the suburbs including Clark County, than some of the urban heat island core development.”
This is completely false, if not an abhorrent lie. A person living in a 1,000 sq. ft. tower who walks and takes transit it consuming far less than someone living in a huge house who drives everywhere. Compact living = more environmentally friendly (I’m not saying everyone should live in a tall building, just your point regarding low densities being more environmentally friendly).
I’ve seen the suburban moonscapes that you’re speaking of. Usually they are not “leafy” and they chop all the nice doug firs down and put up an energy/water consuming patch of lawn and a dinky red maple that won’t get larger than 25 feet.
Urban heat islands are an issue with cities, but not so much in Portland. I hardly consider this a “dire” environmental issue compared to sprawl.
Portland is nice and compact it is able to provide large tracts of contiguous park space. Go ahead, look on Google earth and you will see that Portland has more park space than most of the metro areas. Forest Park is the nation’s largest urban park.
Simply put, the more you spread out, the more environmental damage as it consumes more land. Imagine if everyone lived at low densities of less than 6 units per acre? We’d be sprawled from Multnomah Falls all the way to Salem.
Terry Parker:“If more of the new housing on the Oregon side of the Columbia was being constructed as free standing homes with big yards, and the taxes were considerably less, people and families would not be fleeing to Clark County. The growth management mindset of Portland and Metro officials have only themselves to blame for Oregon workers moving to the North side of the Columbia – and therefore the need for the big bridge.”
There’s plenty of single family homes in the metro suburbs, in fact, I’ve driven by many that have completely halted construction. Happy Valley, anyone?
In regards to growth management, limiting the housing supply can increase home prices, but the Metro area’s UGB, by state law, has to provide a 20 year supply of land. Growth management played no role in higher home prices compared to Clark County. It had more to do with the fact that it’s a nice place and people are vying to live in this very livable area, not to mention real estate speculation and the general housing bubble.
Brian Bundridge wrote: Union Pacific has been running a daily Seattle – Portland (I-SEBA/BASE) train for over 20-30 years in partnership with Northwest Container
Thanks for the correction; I wonder why it doesn’t show up on UP’s intermodal schedule.
Regardless – what’s the real environmental benefit to that? You have to unload and load and position the containers multiple times (they do not go from ship to train, they go from ship to truck to yard to truck to train, then train, then train to truck to yard to truck to destination)…you’ve got lots of yard tractors moving around back and forth. By trucking the container from Tacoma to Portland (and a lot of those containers only go to Vancouver) you are saving a lot of movements, a lot of time, and a lot of truck idling.
It’s been out of service thanks to a park for several years now. It is now a empty bus that runs every 30 minutes and barely sees 35,000 riders a year vs. its prior 200,000+ riders.
Yes, I know.
I admit that when I was last in Seattle (actually the last several trips), I just walked. I took the Streetcar for the sake that it was a streetcar for the ride, not for it being a mode of transportation. In other words, it was nothing more than a novelty for me.
I actually intended on taking the “Waterfront Streetcar” bus last time, but I just missed it by five minutes and the next one wasn’t for 25 minutes. Ended up walking to my destination faster (since it was only a ten block walk).
“There’s plenty of single family homes in the metro suburbs, in fact, I’ve driven by many that have completely halted construction. Happy Valley, anyone?”
I live in a detached single family house in inner NE Portland that I bought on a solidly middle class income, with a great yard. I can get on my bike and be at Pioneer Courthouse Square in 15 minutes. That’s faster than by any other mode, if you factor in the time I would spend looking for parking.
When people blame the UGB for increases in housing prices, I have a three word response: Salt Lake City. Essentially zero growth management, and higher rate of increase for median home prices over the past 2 decades or so. In fact, prices in Portland have risen rather slowly compared to most west coast cities. Of course all bets are off now, but that was true a year or 2 ago.
Look!
It’s Chris Smith:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGRexNa5TI4
Portlanders will not accept a 12-lane freeway anywhere in our city, especially not a hideously ugly 12-lane bridge for Vancouver.
Zombie Mayor Adams is going down: that much is certain. Leanard and Fish may as well pack their bags and move across the river because they certainly aren’t welcome in North Portland anymore.
Although it may not seem like it at times, there are plenty of people here who are ready to stand up for a tough fight to defend what Portland is all about: a haven from the mind-numbing corporate uniformity and culture-barren stupidity that grips most of our fair nation. We perceive the idea of this 12-lane monstrosity as nothing less than a siege on our little slice of independence; its construction would be an outright invasion of our culture and consciousness by the forces of conservative uniformity, manifested as an army of eight passenger vehicles with a solo occupant and Washington plates..
So, I invite everyone to come down to the Waterfront on April 5. If March 5 was the day that our local government officials showed their true colors (grey and gold), one month later will be the day we leave them without a trace of doubt that Portland is green and black.
Portland ships about 1% of west coast containers, Vancouver fewer. Most of those export containers carry straw cubes and many just air…ie. empties. Container trains are made up and broken down at Lake, Albina and Brooklyn yards in Portland every day. Most Portland exports go via PDX or in containers to Seattle and/or Tacoma, more and more by rail. The biggest exports out of Portland are wheat and bulk minerals.
Upgrading the 1910 Columbia River railroad bridge relieves freigth rail congestion, allows for more passenger rail trip including commuter rail from Vancouver.
Well, we are handing out fliers at the Delta Park northbound I-5 onramp starting at 4 pm all week, if anyone wants to help. I think some people are going to try to cover Broadway on the Vancouver side, too. Who really wants to pay tolls to fund this $4 Billion project? Some of it will also depend upon a vote to be taken on the Clark Co. side of the Columbia—-although I hear there is some fancy gerrymandering going on to try to swing the vote in favor of “The Bridge.”
Lenny Anderson wrote: containers to Seattle and/or Tacoma, more and more by rail
So, based upon the previous post, the daily (yes, once daily) commuter train between PDX and SEA carries about 30-50 containers. Likely some of those are empties.
Based upon WSDOT figures, roughly 5500 trucks cross over I-5 daily, with just over 6,000 north of I-205 on I-5. Since some 45% of that traffic is through (not stopping in the Portland/Vancouver area) it’s likely that most, if not all of that, is freight that could be shifted to container-on-flatcar, with roughly another 10-20% of the local traffic.
So, about 3,000 of the trucks on the Interstate Bridge could be containerized.
And the daily catchment is about 100 containers between PDX-SEA.
A new bridge is not going to magically make that count increase, considering that rail already has the capacity for far greater volumes by rail. The vast majority of truck traffic in our region is local and won’t go by rail at all.
Speaking of rail volumes, in tonnage rail hauls 32.9 million tons in/out of the Portland metro area; marine hauls 28.4 million tons in/out of the Portland metro area. According to ODOT statistics, Multnomah County is by far the largest rail traffic point of Oregon. As you can see, the bulk of that is transloaded at the Port of Portland. While Lenny is correct in that the Port of Portland is a tiny container player, the bulk of the Port’s rail/marine business is potash shipped in from Alberta (there’s the “raw materials”), grain from pretty much anywhere east, automobiles, other bulk commodities, and then the containers. Eliminate the potash and grain…and rail is virtually nothing in Oregon. Heck, we’ve all but shut down our timber industry which has been the backbone of the rail system south and west of Portland. Since we’re (on this forum) on a bent to eliminate cars, there’s hundreds of good paying Honda/Toyota/Subaru/Hyundai jobs out of the Port to keep the trains full. Before long, there’s almost no point to having freight rail in Oregon since there’s no industry to effectively use it.
Oh, and that ethanol plant on the Columbia River? It’s essentially mothballed. So much for those unit grain trains of corn. Commuter trains do not pay for rail maintenance.
Its interesting that non-local freight on trucks still prefers I-5 to the bypass, I-205…that’s because for 90% of the day its faster and more direct; I-5 is fine.
So its agreed…we ship out grain and bulk minerals and import automobiles; no need to worry about getting those containers to and from T-6 or to Vancouver. Many come via barge anyway.
Generally, imports do not drive an economy.
re the wood products industry, note that there are 10 paper mills within 50 miles of Portland, all use rail. Value added wood products are produced all over the state, but thankfully we have quit shipping raw logs to asia.
Its clear that the CRC focused on the wrong bridge. The Governors’ TF identified a relatively cheap list of projects that would relieve freight rail congestion at either end of the bridge. At 100 years old next year, it is older than the highway bridges. Were it to fail, the nearest bypass is 100 miles east in the Gorge, while I-205 is just a few miles east of I-5. I-5 has more problems with flooding up north than at the Columbia River. The RR bridge needs a wider lift type span as Doug explained above, which would eliminate most if not all I-5 lifts for commercial traffic. There is a ton of potential to move more freight traffic onto rail; indeed, I have it from an excellent source that there is significant growth there. Higher speed rail (Cascadia) and eventually High Speed Rail will need more capacity over the existing bridge until we can get a higher span or tunnel for passenger rail. Commuter rail can relieve some of the demand for motor vehicle capacity along I-5. TriMet could start building more DMUs now.