My Portland relatives had tickets for the recent Kelly Clarkson and Maroon 5 concert at the Sleep County Amphitheater in Ridgefield. They sat in bridge traffic for two long hours, arriving one hour late for the concert after spending high prices for the tickets and parking. They enjoyed what they saw of the concert but vowed to encourage Sleep County or any other company to build an amphitheater in the Portland area.
They have read the local papers and are baffled as to why their Southwest Washington neighbors don’t see the importance of a progressive infrastructure between our two states — and the financial benefits to be gained. “How can this be?” they ask. I explained that it began with the very well-funded “No Tolls.Com” campaign, followed by the extremely emotional, vocal and short-sighted “No Light Rail” portion of our population who refused to listen to years of research and hundreds of experts.
A recent good example of this “How?” was a writer’s concluding sentence in a recent letter to the editor: “Well, why don’t they build a tunnel?” That “tunnel” question was addressed and well answered in every single Columbia River Crossing presentation I attended. The “happily uninformed” always have the answers, and waste no time grandstanding.
Donna Quesnell
Vancouver
