From the press release:
Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council meets May 4
VANCOUVER – The Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council will begin a discussion of tolling at its next meeting on Monday, May 4.
The agenda includes an update on recent tolling legislation, a background presentation and discussion of lessons learned from tolling outreach on other northwest highways, and a beginning discussion on how to study and engage the public on tolling for the Columbia River Crossing project.
Multiple sources will be necessary to fund construction of the Columbia River Crossing project, including federal, state, regional and local sources, and tolls. Specific toll collection strategies have not been identified, but tolls would be collected electronically to avoid the need for toll booths.
The Project Sponsors Council also will begin discussing the concept of “performance measures” for ensuring optimal long-term performance of the Columbia River crossing. The need for such measures was identified during the March Project Sponsors Council meeting. A performance measurement technical group will be formed in June to develop performance measurements for consideration later this year.
The public meeting will be held 1:30 – 3 p.m. at the Clark County Public Services Center, sixth floor hearing room, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver. Meeting materials are available at: http://www.columbiarivercrossing.org/ProjectPartners/PSCMeetingMaterials.aspx.
5 responses to “CRC Sponsors Council to Take Up Tolling”
I’ll be interested to see how they engineer this.
20 cent one way tolls paid for the second span in the 50’s. In today’s dollars that is about $5 two way. That should be the starting point, and will hopefully kill this thing on the WA side.
Where as, the primary purpose of tolling is to pay for the local share of a new Columbia River Crossing at I-5; and since all modes of transport will receive benefit from a new bridge, all users at all levels of the bridge must then be required to pay a toll.
The costs for infrastructure for each mode of travel needs to be separated out and disclosed to the public so as each mode of transport can be tolled respectively and proportionately, relative only to the costs of providing infrastructure only for that specific mode, along with the tolling of each mode contributing a proportionate share of to the superstructure costs of the bridge.
In other words, if motorists and truckers must pay a toll to cross the bridge, then so to must transit riders, bicyclists and pedestrians also pay a toll. No mode or modes ought to have a freeloader pass nor should the tolling of any mode or modes be subsidizing the infrastructure or operational costs for a different mode of travel. Anything less than each mode paying their own way for the local share of infrastructure and operational costs as with transit would be socially engineered discrimination.
Moreover, as with most toll routes, there is an alternative route to paying the tolls. Since the I-205 Glenn Jackson Bridge is the only other Columbia River Crossing in the Portland-Vancouver area, the I-205 crossing needs to remain toll free!
Not only that… but tolls on cars (as well as on busses, trains, and other socialist mass-transit schemes) should be per passenger, not per vehicle! Carpoolers should not be permitted to freeload by combining multiple trips into one car–in addition, they should pay an additional penalty for the privelege of HOV lanes, and the incremental wear and tear caused by the weight of a fully-occupied vehicle, as opposed to one only containing the driver!
Otherwise, it’s communist TYRANNY!
Grumble grumble grumble!
:)
Could you say that again Terry? I didn’t hear you the first two thousand times.