The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

PORTLAND — Transportation planners don’t want to make a multibillion-dollar repair to a critical corridor for heavy trucks, only to have it quickly clogged by commuters.

That’s why a new Columbia River Crossing should include a variety of measures designed to entice motorists to use buses, vanpools or bikes, planners told members of the bistate Project Sponsors Council meeting in Portland Friday.

“It doesn’t really get you excited like a new light-rail train,” Portland transportation project manager Peter Hurley said. “But it’s the single most efficient investment you can make.”

The project currently is estimated to cost between $2.6 billion and $3.6 billion.

It would replace two existing three-lane drawbridges over the Columbia, improve four miles of freeway, and extend Portland’s light-rail system into downtown Vancouver. Planners anticipate needing at least $400 million in federal highway funding for the project, along with $750 million to build the light-rail extension.

The new 10-lane crossing is also designed to unclog a major freight corridor.

‘Influence area’

Much of the metro area’s industrial core is already situated around the Vancouver Lake lowlands and north Portland, which means that Interstate 5 is crucial for moving freight within the metro area and beyond it.

Transportation planners already consider the 4-mile-long “bridge influence area” to be a pinch point on the West Coast’s major north-south thoroughfare, and port officials told members of the sponsors council that they expect demand on the corridor will continue to grow. The Port of Vancouver, for example, anticipates truck traffic will double to 400,000 truck trips a year with industrial expansion planned for its Columbia Gateway area.

Keeping traffic flowing smoothly will take more than concrete and asphalt, planners said.

It makes sense to peel off as many single-occupancy vehicles as possible, especially during morning and afternoon rush hours, members of a transportation demand management working group told the sponsors council. The group recommended a variety of tools, shared between business and government.

“There is no silver bullet,” Hurley said, “but there is silver buckshot.”

The working group figured officials could shave between 1,200 and 1,700 vehicle trips during each afternoon and evening rush hour through a hodgepodge of methods. Increased use of transit, telecommuting, vanpools and carpools were some of the biggest.

The group calculated it would cost about $13.2 million for additional buses, along with various employer outreach programs and incentives to reduce traffic congestion — a relatively small hedge against a $3.6 billion investment.

“You don’t see mentioned here pricing, which is one of the major hammers that you can use,” said Matt Ransom, transportation planning manager for the city of Vancouver.

Tolls still big issue

Tolls remain a hot-button issue, especially in Vancouver.

“You heard today a very clear statement that traffic demand management is very important to the stakeholders,” Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt said afterward. “There’s no doubt that tolling will impact folks’ behavior. Tolling to pay for the bridge is one thing, but artificially manipulating tolling to influence people’s habits is not something many of us are going to buy into.”

Leavitt said he believes state and local officials can come to an agreement on a new crossing, but that “we’ve got a lot of work to do in the next eight months.”

Meanwhile, Portland-area politicians remain wary of a 10-lane bridge fueling urban sprawl.

“Typically, when you add more capacity in an urban environment, it gets sucked up by cars,” said David Bragdon, president of the Portland-area Metro council. “If (the new bridge) induces more cars, how are we better off?”

Even so, elected officials merged gradually toward consensus.

“I’m optimistic we can work together in a way that’s timely, but that also produces something that we can all agree on,” Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart said.

The group agreed to meet again next week to begin hammering out some of the differences that emerged with a Jan. 19 letter from four members of the council who called the crossing, as currently designed and financed, “unacceptable.” Govs. Chris Gregoire and Ted Kulongoski responded last month by directing state transportation planners to move the project forward without delay.

Sponsors council Chairman Henry Hewitt, a Portland attorney who’s been involved in transportation issues for two decades, offered a bit of legal perspective at the conclusion of Friday’s meeting.

“If local elected officials don’t support it, it won’t happen,” Hewitt said. “That’s the beginning and end of the legal analysis.”

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551, or erik.robinson@columbian.com.

Print this article