The Columbia River Crossing revival scheme is a bad idea, arrogantly forced on an unwilling public.
The new scheme was announced Aug. 6 — primary election day — too late for most voters to process. The scheme is Oregon-led, since Washington’s Senate rejected the original CRC plan. Oregon is given power to set tolls, collect the resulting revenue, and influence direction of eminent domain condemnations in Vancouver.
Allowing Oregon to do all this in Washington is just fine, at least according to Washington’s assistant attorney general, who says Washington’s governor can authorize it without legislative approval (thereby evading another embarrassing legislative rejection).
To collaborate with this scheme, C-Tran threw together another Vancouver light rail operations and maintenance funding plan — the prior one was rejected by 57 percent of the voters last November. The new plan has a $400,000 estimated annual funding gap (17 percent of the $2.3 million budget, deceptively labeled as a third-party contribution). It assumes sales tax revenues collected from project construction will fund light rail O&M, opening up yet another funding gap once construction ends. C-Tran’s board hastily approved the scheme, which voters cannot vote on — or reject.
