The planned Columbia River Crossing will move forward without further delay, Washington and Oregon’s governors wrote in a letter to elected officials.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, responding to a letter from local elected officials calling the current CRC design “unacceptable,” said they will appoint an independent panel to analyze the work completed to date.

“The citizens of this region have watched our two states discuss and plan for a new bridge for over 20 years, and they expect us to proceed,” Gregoire and Kulongoski wrote.

The governors responded to a Jan. 19 letter from Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt, Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart and Metro council President David Bragdon. The four elected officials, who all serve on the CRC’s 10-member Project Sponsors Council, said they supported a new Interstate 5 bridge but they warned the governors that they wanted more local control and a review of the design and financing of a 10-lane bridge, five miles of freeway improvements and a light-rail extension to Vancouver.

But the governors made it clear they intend to push the project forward toward construction beginning in 2012.

“Interstate 5 is a major economic corridor for both states and the entire West Coast,” the governors wrote in the letter dated Tuesday. “We feel strongly this project must move forward without delay.”

Planners in the bistate crossing’s Vancouver office will begin circulating drafts of a voluminous environmental study on the project by the end of this month, with time enough for two federal transportation agencies to publish a formal Record of Decision by the end of this year — just in time for both state legislatures’ 2011 sessions and for Congress to reauthorize the federal six-year transportation funding bill.

“This project cannot afford delays,” Kulongoski and Gregoire wrote. “We are directing our Departments of Transportation to move forward, as scheduled.”

Leavitt said he was pleased with the governors’ response, noting that planners with the bistate CRC office in Vancouver have agreed to work with local government representatives to review the project.

“They responded favorably to our request for a stronger partnership,” said Leavitt, who was elected mayor after campaigning to fight tolls on the new bridge.

Leavitt, who wants a new bridge, agreed with the governors on the importance of a timely review.

“The reality is, we need to have our ducks lined up so that once that transportation legislation is finally addressed in Washington, D.C., we’re ready and waiting for an assignment of dollars for the project,” Leavitt said.

The broad outline of the crossing project — a replacement bridge with light rail — received the conditional support of city councils, transit agencies and metropolitan planning organizations on both sides of the river in June and July 2008.

Gregoire and Kulongoski are stepping in now to take control of the process.

The governors directed their respective state transportation departments to incorporate a series of refinements proposed by engineers in November. Those refinements generated an estimated savings of $650 million on the $4.2 billion project, but Adams and Bragdon had balked at accepting the refinements when the sponsors council met in December.

Among other problems, the refinements raised the possibility of Hayden Island losing its lone grocery store and gas station.

The governors rejected the local officials’ request to allow local governments to hire and supervise an expert review panel; instead, the governors themselves will convene a group of experts.

“An expert panel is only as good as who hires them and what questions they ask,” Bragdon said. “This fits a pattern of not allowing any independent scrutiny of the project.”

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