Building the Right Bridge
The biggest boondoggle faces is perhaps the Columbia River Crossing project (CRC). The CRC is a $4.2 billion freeway expansion project between the cities of Portland and Vancouver that would widen the Interstate-5 Bridge across the Columbia River to 12 lanes and create or upgrade 5 interchanges in Vancouver. Billed as necessary to reduce congestion, this "Mega-Bridge would instead:
- Increase global warming pollution by at least 32% and make it impossible for the region to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gases to levels required by state law.
- Increase toxic air pollution for local neighborhoods.
- Encourage sprawl in Clark County, Washington.
- Do virtually nothing to reduce congestion.
- Drain available funding for building infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, buses, light rail, transit-oriented and mixed-use development, and low income housing.
The CRC has been rammed through with little support from the local communities and disregard of Oregon and Washington greenhouse gas laws. That's why Environment Oregon is calling for an independent study of the project led by the regional transportation agencies -- Metro and Clark County Council of Governments.
In the end, we expect the right bridge to include seismic retrofitting of the existing bridge without expansion, upgrades to the existing rail bridge, a new bridge for light rail and bikes, a new commuter bridge between North Portland and Hayden Island, and one priced high-occupancy-vehicle lane on both the I-5 and I-205 bridges.
