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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Ridgefield park-and-ride lot dedicated

Leaders expect quiet location to be bustling within a few years

By , Columbian Small Cities Reporter
Published:
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Ridgefield Mayor Ron Onslow cuts a ribbon Thursday during a dedication event for a new park-and-ride lot east of Interstate 5 at the Ridgefield Junction.
Ridgefield Mayor Ron Onslow cuts a ribbon Thursday during a dedication event for a new park-and-ride lot east of Interstate 5 at the Ridgefield Junction. The lot has about 90 parking spaces. Photo Gallery

RIDGEFIELD — Construction is finished on one of the last pieces of infrastructure supporting what Ridgefield officials see as a fast-growing hub for employers in the next several years.

Mayor Ron Onslow and a number of other officials gathered at the Ridgefield Junction Thursday afternoon for a ribbon cutting to celebrate the completion of a new park-and-ride lot. For now, the lot occupies a fairly quiet location just east of Interstate 5 next to the Country Café at 65th Avenue and First Circle.

But Onslow anticipates the site will be bustling with activity in the next five years, with Clark College and PeaceHealth planning to build new facilities just blocks away. The college recently acquired a 59-acre site at Boschma Farms for its north county campus and PeaceHealth owns 75 acres of open land nearby.

“We really, really are happy that this project has come to fruition,” Onslow said. “The completion of the overpass, the two roundabouts, and eventually we will have a road that will go east, and this will service all of the Clark College area, which is right across the street.”

The price tag for the park-and-ride project was about $1.2 million, he said. Grants from the Washington State Department of Transportation covered about 80 percent of the cost, and C-Tran and the city of Ridgefield came up with the rest of the money.

The park-and-ride site has about 90 spots. C-Tran’s Connector bus already services parts of Ridgefield, but the agency plans to ramp up service with a new designated stop and bus shelter next to the park and ride, said Jeff Hamm, executive director and CEO of C-Tran.

“We’re going to be having regular Connector service stopping here,” Hamm said. “This is one of the important pieces to the puzzle of making this truly a multimodal transportation system for Clark County as well as in Vancouver.”

Mayor Tim Leavitt, who chairs the C-Tran Board of Directors, praised the city of Ridgefield for working with the agency to expand public transportation. Not naming any names or places, he also used the opportunity to take a swipe at other Clark County cities that haven’t played so nice with C-Tran.

“I think the leadership that has been demonstrated here in Ridgefield is really an example for some of the other cities in our community to follow,” Leavitt said, “because frankly, they’re lacking in some leadership when it comes to public transit.”

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Columbian Small Cities Reporter