Cheers: To two much-needed local transportation improvements. First, the first portion of a new, wider Interstate 5 overpass at Pioneer Street opened this week, providing a better way to access Ridgefield and the numerous warehousing and manufacturing businesses that have grown around the junction there over the past decade. The old overpass was suitable for a small farming town, but the trucks and residential growth had made it unsafe and created traffic backups at peak times. When fully completed next year or early in 2012, the project will provide an incentive instead of a barrier for future job growth.
The second project, resurfacing 8.5 miles of Highway 14, began this week. Drivers, especially at night, should watch for construction work from Interstate 5 to the Southeast 164th Avenue exit. The pavement is in poor condition, as anyone who drives this stretch regularly already knows. The work had been on the project list for 2011. Federal stimulus money moved the work up by one year. Unfortunately, there is still no money for adding the much-needed additional lane from Interstate 205 to 164th Avenue.
Jeers: To the problems with vanpools. Over the years, government agencies have tried their best to match commuters and provide them with a van that they can drive to work. C-Tran had a vanpool service but outsourced it in the 1990s. Last year, it jumped back in, using a $670,000 state grant to buy 30 vans. A year later, eight are still unclaimed.
When the vanpools work, they are great, participants say. Compared with other forms of commuting, they are cost-effective and green. But there are too many obstacles — changing work schedules, lack of buy-in from employers, and the lack of time to organize pools, to name a few. Attention needs to be paid to these problems before more vans are purchased.