Political voices on both sides of the Columbia River are striking a positive tone and avoiding past battles as they launch a second effort to replace the Interstate 5 Bridge.
Lurking beneath the veneer of tranquility are the same issues that polarized the region a decade ago: opposition to tolling, hostility toward light rail, support for a third Columbia River bridge, concerns about climate change, and a sneaking suspicion this $3 billion-plus megaproject will cost too much and deliver too little.
Nearly $200 million was spent on the Columbia River Crossing. The project achieved important milestones, including the federal government’s December 2011 decision that it had met the National Environmental Policy Act’s stringent provisions. Eighteen months later, the project fell apart when the Washington Senate failed to match Oregon’s $450 million contribution to launch construction.
The size and complexity of such a massive project can lead to its downfall.
“Most megaprojects don’t succeed,” said Aaron Shenhar, an international expert on project management and CEO of The SPLWIN Group in Verona, N.J. “If anybody starts a megaproject today, they must realize that their chances for success are as good as the statistics.”
Officials are optimistic a new set of local and state political leaders, coupled with mounting frustration over daily traffic jams and the potential to substitute bus rapid transit for light rail, will make the project’s reboot successful.
Congestion and your pocketbook
Traffic jams on the two freeways into Portland cost commuters more than aggravation.
The Washington State Department of Transportation places a monetary value on time and gas wasted in congestion.
Morning rush hour delays on Interstate 5, from the freeway’s junction with Interstate 205 in Salmon Creek to the Interstate 5 Bridge, cost each vehicle $293 annually. The cost is even worse for commuters on I-205 in Washington, where morning traffic jams cost each vehicle $400 a year in time and gas.
Those two figures cover only Washington congestion, not how much additional time and gas is wasted sitting in Oregon congestion.
“We can’t be pussyfooting around,” Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle said. “Let’s get serious and get this done.”
Some in the business community perceived the Columbia River Crossing as a government project that naturally would get built, McEnerny-Ogle said, and stayed on the sidelines.
“It was a surprise to many that it didn’t happen, so we now have all hands on deck,” she said. “They are all jumping in to talk and to work and to educate their folks on why it’s important.”
McEnerny-Ogle, who led an apology tour to get Oregon re-engaged following the Washington Senate’s inaction six years ago, has worked to overcome reluctance from those who still feel burned by the Columbia River Crossing’s demise.
Some are reluctant to dissect past failures and discuss what was learned.
Kris Strickler, who last month was named Oregon transportation director pending Senate confirmation, worked on the Columbia River Crossing. In an internal Oregon Department of Transportation interview posted on YouTube, Strickler said there are aspects of that project he would handle differently. Instead of discussing lessons learned, he talked about the need for “jurisdictional and stakeholder input” to help define what didn’t go well.
“What we know is the congestion has gotten significantly worse, the economy is being hampered, the bridge is still there and we have a significant need to replace it,” he said. “So if you can focus on the knowns and be reflective at the same time, I think that’s a good recipe.”
Carley Francis, Washington State Department of Transportation’s southwest regional administrator, is another veteran of the Columbia River Crossing. A planner by profession, Francis worked on the failed project for more than six years and served as its spokeswoman, answering media questions and helping disseminate information to those dubious of the project’s merits.
Today, Francis is working behind the scenes to lay the foundation for a second project that will build on previous work. She has met with each member of Clark County’s legislative delegation to establish and maintain communication lines in hopes of avoiding a second legislative defeat.
Francis is focused more on developing a plan for how to move forward, instead of pinpointing what will be built in bridge, freeway and transit elements.
“The ‘what’ is sticky and messy, so we have to do a good ‘how,’ ” she said.
The American Transportation Research Institute lists I-5 at the Columbia River as the nation’s 29th biggest truck bottleneck. According to statistics compiled by DKS Associates, a transportation engineering and planning firm, 65 percent of weekday truck traffic from the Port of Vancouver heads south on I-5.
United delegation
Unlike the Columbia River Crossing, Clark County’s state legislators support replacing the bridge.
State Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, said the I-5 Bridge prompted her to first run for the Legislature in 2012. Decades ago, she remembers driving to Portland while in high school and encountering a chain-reaction crash with fatalities on her return trip, a memory that remains vivid today.
Eight of the nine state lawmakers from the 17th, 18th and 49th legislative districts agree the top priority is replacing the I-5 Bridge, Cleveland said.
“What’s different is we are starting from a place of a shared goal,” she said. “We have consensus, and that is entirely different from the past.”
Cleveland said the group’s only holdout is state Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, adding that Kraft may still fall in with the rest of the delegation.
“None of us who have been working on this on this side of the river dispute there needs to be more bridges in the future,” Cleveland said.
The delegation also agrees that a new interstate bridge must have a transit component, Cleveland said, but it hasn’t locked onto connecting to Portland’s light-rail system or expanding C-Tran bus rapid transit service, which is operating on Fourth Plain Boulevard and could begin service on Mill Plain Boulevard in 2023.
High-capacity transit
Nearly a quarter century has passed since Clark County voters trounced a February 1995 plan to increase sales and motor vehicle excise taxes to help finance a light-rail line to Hazel Dell. Light rail remains a hot button issue for those who consider it emblematic of everything they don’t like about Portland and don’t want to see here.
Portland leaders aren’t saying, “No light rail, no bridge,” at least not publicly. In August, Portland’s mayor, Metro’s council president, a Multnomah County commissioner and the executive directors of TriMet and the Port of Portland signed a three-page letter to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee outlining their support for a bridge replacement project.
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McEnerny-Ogle said her worst fear is “the federal government never does put money into infrastructure, that we are completely on our own.”
“I think that would be the deal killer,” she said.
