Graphic from Washington For CRC on Facebook.

If reports on Twitter are to be trusted, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber is all set to sign The CRC Bill (HB 2800) into law on Tuesday. While that's no surprise, there are a few other items related to the Columbia River Crossing project that have recently caught our eye.

— A reader has tipped us off to WashingtonForCRC.org and what looks like a classic astroturf campaign. And by that I mean a corporate PR effort made to seem like an organic, grassroots lobbying effort. Now that Oregon has effectively signed-off on it, it looks like the pushers of this controversial mega-project have wasted no time trying to improve public sentiment on other side of the river. It's a smart move, given that if the project's outlook doesn't improve in Washington soon, it won't move forward. WashingtonForCRC.org comes complete with a super-slick website listing "facts" about the project (which are taken directly from paid CRC consultants' talking points), an active Facebook and Twitter presence, and even a cute logo of a bridge with a heart on it. (more...)

Senator Chip Shields.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Many of you where surprised and disappointed when Oregon State Senator Chip Shields voted in favor of HB 2800, a.k.a. the CRC bill. Shields is a Democrat who represents the north and northeast Portland district that will be most immediately impact by this massive freeway expansion project.

Shields' vote was surprising because many of his constituents urged him to vote no and he is someone who understands the impacts this project will have. No one knew why Shields voted yes because he hadn't responded to any constituent emails about the bill. Until now. Several BikePortland readers have just sent me a note from Sen. Shields that explains why he voted yes.

Read Shields' full email below (emphases mine): (more...)

Sen. Chip Shields, who represents
north and northeast Portland, was one
of 18 yes votes.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Oregon Senate passed HB 2800 (the CRC bill) today by a vote of 18-11. The vote comes just a week after the House passed it 45-11. The bill will now be signed into law by Governor Kitzhaber.

The bill was carried by Senators Lee Beyer and Bruce Starr, both of whom spoke at length about the project's benefits and urgency.

Beyer said "the time has come" before rattling of a list of conditions in the bill that must be fulfilled before Oregon can sell $450 million in bonds. One of the questions he offered an answer to was whether or not the $27 million per year bond repayments will impact other transportation projects. That has been a key concern from opponents of the project and has not been clearly answered by ODOT and CRC staff. Beyer said on the Senate floor today that the answer is "To be frank, no and yes." He said since the project wouldn't begin construction until 2014, no other priorities would be impacted until then. "On the other hand," he continued, "the [Oregon] Transportation Commission and the his legislature is always in a position of having to prioritize projects since there's never enough money. In transportation funding, there's a sense of everyone taking its turn. And at this point, because of its impact on the entire state economy, the I-5 Bridge Replacement Project is on the top of the list." (more...)

On Tuesday we pointed out that despite $170 million and years of planning the largest public works project in our state's history, realistic visual representations of the Columbia River Crossing project are not available to the public. Detailed renderings showing the widened lanes on the freeway, interchanges, and the bridge deck — the type of imagery that's standard practice across the country to illustrate proposed transportation projects — are not available on the official CRC project website. When asked repeatedly to see such images, CRC staff has shared only cartoon sketches and plan drawings buried in PDF documents.
(more...)

The Columbia River Crossing project took a big step forward when HB 2800 easily passed the Oregon House this week. But while the project has made a lot of noise lately, major environmental and transportation advocacy groups have stayed quiet.

The bill will likely be voted on by the Senate next week (March 4th) and then Governor Kitzhaber is expected to sign it into law (unless he gets nostalgic and has a change of heart).

As this snowball has gathered size and speed, I have become intrigued by the deafening silence about it from our region's major environmental, land-use, and transportation advocacy groups. Groups like the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, the Oregon Environmental Council, and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Meanwhile, the relatively small opposition has been led by volunteer grassroots activists with little to no budget and a few organizations pulled together by Coalition for a Livable Future, an umbrella group that has just two policy-related staff. At a house party on Tuesday hosted by CLF and the Facebook-based group Shut Down the CRC, they celebrated a paltry $1,000 fundraising goal to help pay someone to work the halls of Salem to stop the bill. (more...)

Watch the clip below from Friday's excellent OPB show, Think Out Loud. It features Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman and Oregonian editorial and commentary editor Erik Lukens discussing the Columbia River Crossing.

For context, the Willamette Week has been dogging this project for a log time and has done more than any other media outlet to raise questions about it. Meanwhile, The Oregonian Editorial Board has written 38 glowingly positive articles about the CRC, many of them simply parroting talking points put out by ODOT and CRC staff.

Watch The O's Lukens respond to a question about the shaky tolling projections (which he admits are problematic) and then listen how he goes right into the CRC talking points. It sure is an amazing willingness to endorse a project with extremely shaky financial from a paper with a very conservative editorial board:

After this clip, Zusman went on to share that his paper is working on a story about how Governor Kitzhaber — one of the project's biggest cheerleaders — privately despises the project. I'm really looking forward to reading more about that.

The CRC they don't want you to see.
(Image source: CRC Urban Design Advisory Group final report)

You'd think that with all the support for the Columbia River Crossing down in Salem, lawmakers and their constituents would have a good idea about what their votes — and their tax dollars — will be going toward. But for some reason, CRC and ODOT staff have hidden the project from public view. Despite spending nearly $170 million on consultants and planning thus far, detailed renderings and/or visualizations of key elements of the project are nowhere to be found.

This is not typical of other large infrastructure projects across the country and it begs the question of whether or not CRC and ODOT staff are purposefully pulling the wool over our eyes. (more...)

By a vote of 45-11, the Oregon House of Representatives voted this morning in support of HB 2800. There was not much debate about the bill, and except for an extremely critical take-down of the project by northeast Portland Democrat Lew Frederick, it sailed through with glowing praise.

Only two Democrats in the entire Oregon House — Reps Lew Frederick (NE Portland) and and Carolyn Tomei (Milwaukie) — voted against the project.

The presentation of the bill in the House chamber began with co-chairs of the Joint Committee on I-5 Bridge Replacement Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario) and Tobias Read (D-Beaverton). (more...)

In 1997, Governor Kitzhaber said, "It's time
we challenged the idea that says we
can build our way out of congestion by adding
more freeway lanes."
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The strong support being given to the $3.4 billion Columbia River Crossing highway expansion project by Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber represents a u-turn from his previous positions. The two-time governor was once considered a progressive thinker when it came to transportation. Comments made during his first term as Governor now seem at odds with his strong support for HB 2800, the "CRC bill" that passed a vote in the Oregon House this morning.

On February 13th, during the first of two hearings on HB 2800, Kitzhaber sounded like a staffer for the CRC project. He rattled off all the talking points one by one and painted a picture for lawmakers of dire urgency if the project fails to move forward immediately.

"We must seize this opportunity to get a huge return on investment in Oregon's future," he said, "It's time to build a bridge." Kitzhaber said the project is "construction ready" (even though CRC staff themselves say it's only at a 30% design) and that it will, "Increase mobility" and "Fix one of the worst bottlenecks of any highway system in the U.S." (more...)

Artist's rendering of the project

HB 2800, the bill that will give a green light (at least on the Oregon side) to the Columbia River Crossing I-5 freeway expansion project, will likely be voted on by the Oregon House when they convene at 11:00 am on Monday (2/25).

After years of what has felt like very slow progress, the project has flown through the legislative process this session. It's clear that Governor Kitzhaber — who was opposed to massive highway expansion projects during his former stint as Governor, but for some reason this time around he's become a champion of the largest freeway expansion in Oregon history — has seized the opportunity of having a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate.

(more...)