Local View: Study of third bridge over river is logical, needed
By Ann Donnelly
Published: March 3, 2019, 6:01am
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Centuries ago, when horse-drawn carriages were common, blinders prevented horses from seeing distractions or danger on the side. But do intellectual blinders work when people are contemplating multi-decade investments in regional transportation?
In recent years, Oregon transportation planners, seemingly obsessed with adding light rail and tolls on the I-5 corridor, have effectively put intellectual blinders on the bistate bridge-planning process. Opposed to serious analysis of other routes across the Columbia, they exercise far more influence on the process than is good for Washington’s economy.
A proposal (House Bill 1835) by Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, would authorize Washington to spend $300,000 to study a western alternative bridge to the I-5 transportation corridor. The bill has been widely dismissed as a “bridge to nowhere,” based on Oregon’s opposition. Kraft, formerly a policy analyst with the Freedom Foundation, deserves respectful review of her suggested first step toward the needed broader study of transportation needs.
Unlike Kraft, some of Washington’s leading experts are all too ready to join in Oregon’s “group think.” Chuck Green, who has been a major participant in transportation planning for decades, and whose experience is heavy in government perspectives, explains that Oregon planners have “no interest” in an alternative route. Their priority is “protecting their Urban Growth Boundary.” Green observes that a third-bridge option is “not on anybody’s transportation plan on either side of the river.”
But it should be. Oregon’s priorities are not necessarily shared by Southwest Washington commuters or by interstate truckers. So why acquiesce so meekly? Vancouver — now a nationally recognized hipster hub and coffee shop showcase — should henceforth be more assertive in leading a more intellectually honest approach to our bistate traffic problem. For our growing region, transportation planning requires a broad forward look. A variety of updated scenarios should be modeled by unbiased experts.
The I-205 bridge corridor, opened in 1982, was the last expansion of cross-river vehicle capacity, while vehicle crossings (both bridges) have risen from 109,000 then to more than 300,000 now. The result is the nation’s 10th-worst traffic congestion, unrelieved by the small ridership on C-Tran’s seven-route express buses.
Remove blinders
In successful businesses, planning considers customer preferences. Oversized transit solutions requiring decades to finance, permit, and build may be similarly disadvantaged by market forces.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently scaled back the state’s proposed bullet train in the Central Valley, which suffered from “huge cost overruns, mismanagement, political concessions and delay” (in the words of the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 13). Once “the most ambitious public works project since the transcontinental railroad,” the bullet train plan is moribund, wasting millions of dollars.
We are thus reminded that well-managed early analysis saves billions later. Kraft’s bill would pay for an independent study of “all available options for an additional bridge or other connection west of I-5 … (it) must provide high-level conceptual designs of the options put forth and a cost estimate for each option.”
Kraft and bill supporter Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, deserve praise for their vision. With some additional Washington-based support and political will, their concept can and should be broadened to analyze and compare east-side routes as well as an I-5 replacement/upgrade.
Faced with study results, Oregon planners may have to remove their blinders.
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