First CRC Hurdle Cleared?


Yesterday, I described four hurdles that I thought a Columbia River Crossing project within the current boundaries defined by the project team (i.e., without take some significant steps backward to examine more alternatives) must clear.

Today at the Project Sponsors Council meeting, a resolution appears to have been reached, at least in principal, to the first hurdle. From the press release following the meeting:

Use performance indicators to inform traffic management recommendations made by a mobility council. Indicators for commuter, freight, and transit mobility; safety; greenhouse gas emissions; and overall benefit/cost ratio supported today’s recommendations.

Are the sponsors convinced that their ability to ‘recommend’ as a “Mobility Council” is sufficient, or will they hold out for more specific control?

BTW – I think in some quarters my post yesterday was read as an endorsement of the 10/8 compromise. Let me be clear, I was handicapping the process as I see it, but that doesn’t mean I endorse the compromise. I remain an advocate for a supplemental bridge approach as the more fiscally and environmentally appropriate solution.

Which leads us to the question of where the environmental community fits in the process. They (we) certainly are not silent – a post on Blue Oregon and the BTA Blog (I imagine it will show up elsewhere as well) by a coalition of environmental groups reminds us:

This decision will be with us for a century or more. Rather than build the wrong project at great expense, we can develop a financially responsible solution that:

(1) includes only as many lanes as we will need and no more,

(2) uses aggressive policy strategies to manage congestion and thereby save billions in construction dollars,

(3) includes good options for public transit, walking and biking,

(4) positively impacts the health of residents, and

(5) is in line with the global warming reduction plans approved by Washington, Oregon and many local jurisdictions.

But where are the environmental arguments going to get any leverage? If Mayor Adams has signed off on a design based on assumptions about travel that clearly contradict the Climate Action Plan, who is going to get in the way of this project on environmental grounds? The Legislature? I’d hate to think that was our last line of defense.

But there are 3 more hurdles – and one more I forgot to mention yesterday – the near certainty of a legal challenge to how the project has conformed with the requirements of the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process.


7 responses to “First CRC Hurdle Cleared?”

  1. Is it accurate to view the Climate Action Plan requirements as identical to what central planning around here has been producing for a couple decades?

  2. These posts seem like smart and much-needed analysis of the CRC.

    But … at the risk of siding with Steve and Jim, I’m not personally convinced that VMT = global warming on a 100-year time scale, as the Climate Action Plan assumes. If environmentalists took every ounce of energy we spend fighting highway projects and put it into pricing carbon, we might have a working regional cap-and-trade system or even (zounds) a national tax. Which would be more efficient, more effective and ultimately more popular.

    I realize that’s a tangent. And there are other reasons to question the CRC. But … just saying.

  3. The “consensus” does not include the public. There is an actually new CRC bridge design, NOT the one that’s supposedly getting consensus. It’s titled Concept #1 as shown with an official poster-size map at the Jantzen Beach meeting last wednesday.

    Did you see it? It’s the design where NO entrance/exit ramps are built from I-5 to Hayden Island. The North Portland super interchange incorporates a multi-lane ramp system that lands on Hayden Island near Best Buy. And there’s 2 local bridge options, not just the 1 offered with the compromise “consensus” proposal.

    This Concept #1 would be fantastic. Commercial interests may not be too crazy about it, but if Hayden Island “residents” want a Bridgeport-style center and supportive development, this option would do that pretty well. The MAX station could do transit-oriented development to a greater degree. Build landscaped hilltops next to I-5 to deflect noise and hide its sight.

    The Port isn’t thinking environmental impacts of global trade and automobile dependency. They just expect shipping and driving to increase like petroleum doesn’t naturally flow out of canons and poison everything it touches. The Big CRC project is based on the assumption that the port facility is needed for importing more cars. Are these guys insane?

    The best idea for Hayden Island to Vancouver is build only a southbound I-5 bridge with MAX/Ped/Bike just west of the old bridges left in place to handle northbound traffic. In 20-30 years when they’ve really reached their useful lifespan, then replace them. Pair this with Concept #1 and you’ve got an “affordable” low impact, cool project. Oh no, WSDOT hasn’t got enough mega-highway projects to play with like Seattle’s deep-bore tunnel fiasco-atrocity and its companion project the Mercer West fiasco-boondoggle. The cut/cover Tunnelite to replace Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct is the only sensible tunnel.

  4. This Concept #1 would be fantastic. Commercial interests may not be too crazy about it, but if Hayden Island “residents” want a Bridgeport-style center and supportive development, this option would do that pretty well. The MAX station could do transit-oriented development to a greater degree. Build landscaped hilltops next to I-5 to deflect noise and hide its sight.

    Perhaps Commercial Interests will warm up to it. Concept #1 delivers traffic much closer to the geographic center of commercial activity, into what could become a grid of commercial streets. Similar, as you mention, to Bridgeport but also analogous to Cascade Station.

    In fact, the route to Cascade Station is somewhat circuitous for freeway drivers, first to Airport Way, then around a loop to an overpass, then a turn onto Cascade Parkway… but that doesn’t seem to have hurt economic activity at Cascade Station.

    I was out there to pick up office supplies last week (took MAX, just in case you were wondering), and decided to grab a bite at one of the chain restaurants and sit outside… guess what… all of the dozen-plus outside tables were occupied, and there were people standing around waiting or just sitting on the street furnishings and eating/chatting. The kind of thing you see all around downtown Portland and closer-in commercial districts, but don’t expect to see out by the airport.

    Combine a true commercial corridor on Hayden Island with pedestrian access to areas of natural beauty, and you could really transform the place.

  5. A downside to Concept #1 as shown in that PDF is that light rail is still over by the freeway, while motor vehicle access and (likely) the new commercial center is over by the Best Buy (formerly Circuit City), rather than having the transportation options closer and better integrated.

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