“The big lesson here is, we don’t need massive and costly road capital projects.”— Governor Kitzhaber in 1997 after a 6-day closure of the I-5 bridge didn’t result in the massive traffic jams everyone predicted. The effort to resurrect the Columbia River Crossing project is making our heads spin. While citizen activists and non-profit groups … Read more
Tolls and traffic projections for the CRC project raise new questions.(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland) Economist Joe Cortright says new traffic projections from a previously undisclosed report reveals an inconvenient truth about the Columbia River Crossing project. The plan to toll the existing I-5 bridge span (starting in 2016) would lead to nearly 50,000 people per … Read more
Like the project itself, anti-CRC activism is back.(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland) As you might have heard thanks to reporting by the Willamette Week, the Columbia River Crossing project is very much alive. Oregon legislators who once said cooperation from Washington was imperative, have conveniently scuttled that narrative and are preparing to push the project through … Read more
(Graphic: 1000 Friends of Oregon) It appears that regional non-profits might be finally awakening for a fight against the Columbia River Crossing project. This morning, 11 organizations — including 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Sierra Club, and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance — laid out their opposition to the CRC in a strongly-worded letter addressed to … Read more
It may be a hot Friday afternoon in the middle of August, but the president of the Oregon Senate has spent it making calls to key legislators, counting votes for a possible resurrection of the Columbia River Crossing.
Jim Howell, the longtime citizen activist and former TriMet bus planner who helped lead opposition to both the Mount Hood Freeway and the Columbia River Crossing, has an out-of-the-box idea.
Want a smarter bridge? Show up tomorrow.(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland) That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks after the Columbia River Crossing was proclaimed dead, a non-profit in Vancouver is hosting an open house to gather “alternative proposals” to the “failed megaproject”. The event is being organized by ThirdBridgeNow.com, an advocacy group that has … Read more
With this big project in the rear-view, we want to ask the BikePortland community what the Portland region has learned.
The Washington Legislature has failed to pass any funding for the Columbia River Crossing highway expansion project.(Graphic: CRC project rendering)
Cover of today’s Seattle Times. In case you haven’t heard, a bridge on Interstate 5 north of Seattle collapsed and toppled into the Skagit River last night. Two cars fell into the river but amazingly no one was seriously hurt. Reports say it was caused when a large semi truck hit a steel beam truss … Read more
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 … Read 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 … Read more