I’m at the JPACT retreat this morning, where among other things the regional legislative strategy for the 2009 Oregon Legislative session is being discussed. The Port of Portland lobbyist is inculcating a mantra of “job creation” as the top line message for the Columbia River Crossing. I was muttering under my breath: “environmental destruction.”

From Willamette Week: Metro’s Transit Program director, Richard Brandman, is taking a top job at the Columbia River Crossing project. While Brandman might not be a household name, the move may signal that the project’s two sponsor agencies–the Washington and Oregon departments of transportation–want to make the proposed $4.2 billion bridge to the ‘Couv more…

Based on the quotes in Dylan Rivera’s article in the O today, legislators in D.C. aren’t much more enthusiastic than the ones in Salem about putting big money into the Columbia River Crossing. Is it time yet to scrap this thing and start over with a program that actually makes sense?

Quoted in Willamette Week: State lawmakers’ flagging interest in increasing the gas tax next year is driving a hole in a proposed funding plan for the $4.2 billion Columbia River Crossing Project (see “Bridge Over the River Why,” WW, May 21, 2008). A proposed 14-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike had set aside 2 cents for the…

The Governors of Oregon and Washington have appointed a ten-member advisory panel to represent the “project sponsors” for the Columbia River Crossing. While everyone involved is arguing that consensus is required among the group, the transportation commissions and legislatures of the two states have final decision authority. No big surprises in the membership, but perhaps…